EDUCATING 

THE  CHILD 

AT  HOME 


ELLA  FRANCES  LYNCH 


BOOKS  FOR  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

THE  YOUNG  MOTHER'S  HANDBOOK,  by 
Maeianna  Wheeler.     16mo    .     ...     net  $1.00 

PRINCIPLES  OF  CORRECT  DRESS,  by 
Florence  Hull  Winterburn.     16mo    .     net     1.00 

GOOD  FORM  FOR  ALL  OCCASIONS,  by 
Florence  Howe  Hall net     1.00 

NOVEL  WAYS  OF  ENTERTAINING,  by 
Florence  Hull  Winterburn.    .     16mo    net     1.00 

COOK  BOOK  OF  LEFT-OVERS,  by  Clark 
and  RuLON.     16mo net     1.00 

SOCIAL  USAGES  AT  WASHINGTON,  by  Flor- 
ence Howe  Hall.     16mo net     1.00 

HOW  TO  KEEP  HOUSEHOLD  ACCOUNTS, 
by  Charles  Waldo  Haskins.     16mo    .     net     1.00 

THE  EXPERT  MAID  SERVANT,  by  Christine 
Terhune  Herrick.     16mo net     1.00 

HYGIENE  FOR  MOTHER  AND  CHILD,  by 
Dr.  Francis  H.  MacCarthy.    Post  8vo  .     net     1.25 

MANNERS  AND  SOCIAL  USAGES.  lU'd. 
Post  8vo 1.25 

THE  EXPERT  WAITRESS,  by  Anne  Frances 

Springsteed.    New  Edition.    16mo.    .     net     1.00 

THE  BABY,  HIS  CARE  AND  TRAINING, 
by  Marianna  Wheeler.  Revised  edition 
16mo net     1.00 

HOW  TO  BE  BEAUTIFUL,  by  Marie  Mon- 
taigne.   lU'd net    1.00 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 


EDUCATING 
THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

PERSONAL  TRAINING 
AND  THE  WORK  HABIT 

BY 

ELLA   FRANCES  LYNCH 

FOUITOER  OF 
THE  SCHOOL  OF  INDIVIDUAL  INSTRUCTION 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

MCMXIV 


<r 


n 


COPYRIGHT.   1914.    BY   HARPER  ft   BROTHERS 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
PUBLISHED    JULY.     1914 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

Preface  v 

I.  Personality  and  Officialism i 

II.  Our  Public-school  System  on  Trial    .     .  9 

III.  How  TO  Do  Better 24 

IV.  Home    Teaching,    or    the    Neighboring 

School 39 

V.  Poetry,  a  Potent  Educational  Factor    .  59 

VI.  How  to  Teach  English 73 

VII.  How  TO  Teach  Spelling 88 

VIII.  How  TO  Teach  Arithmetic 100 

IX.  How  TO  Teach  Writing  and  Drawing     .  129 

X.  How  TO  Teach  Observation 139 

XI.  How  TO  Evolve  the  Work  Habit      .     .  159 

XII.  How  to  Teach  the  Retarded  Child   .     .  170 

XIII.  Aids  for  Home  Teaching 185 

Index 205 


2966»0 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/educatingchildatOOIyncrich 


PREFACE 

BY  writing  this  book  in  plain  English  it  is 
hoped  to  reach  two  results: 

Firstly.  To  open  the  preserves  of  pedagogy  and 
child-psychology  to  those  who,  though  naturally 
most  intensely  interested  in  the  subject,  are 
deterred  therefrom  by  the  forbidding  phraseol- 
ogy wherein  it  has  hitherto  been  discussed  and 
presented. 

Secondly.  To  help  mothers  to  resume  and  do 
their  sacred  duty  by  their  children  instead  of 
shirking  it  and  delegating  it  to  the  school.  All 
that  I  have  written  is  based  upon  actual  practical 
experience  and  study. 

Like  the  long  search  for  the  Promised  Land  is 
the  search  for  an  efficient  school,  while  the  great 
opportunity  of  home  instruction  and  education  is 
ignored.  Where  shall  I  find  the  best  school  for 
my  children?  Teach  them  yourself  the  things 
you  know  and  can  do. 

The  need  of  practical  explanation  of  home 
teaching  has  been  demonstrated  to  me  by  the 
numerous  inquiries  which  have  been  due  to  some 
knowledge  of  my  own  school  work  and  also  to 

V 


PREFACE 

articles  which  I  have  written  at  the  request  of 
The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and  other  periodicals. 
Every  lecture  or  address  that  I  have  given  has 
been  followed  by  requests  for  explicit  and  de- 
tailed lessons  and  definite  plans.  In  many  of  these 
communications  from  mothers  who  are  now 
teaching  their  own  children  I  read  with  pleasure 
words  like  these:  **I  knew,  after  reading  your 
articles,  that  I  could  do  it.  It  seems  so  easy." 
Again,  came  letters  from  teachers  who  felt  that 
such  plans  could  well  be  carried  out  with  small 
groups  of  children,  and  thus  were  established  the 
neighborhood  schools  herein  described. 

A  word  of  appreciation  is  due  to  Dr.  Calvin  N. 
Kendall,  Commissioner  of  Education  for  New 
Jersey,  under  whose  jurisdiction  was  carried  on 
the  first  public  school  of  individual  instruction, 
and  also  to  the  many  teachers  who  have  labored 
with  me  to  bring  this  plan  into  the  public  schools. 

This  book  is  dedicated  to  my  mother  and  father, 
from  whom  I  learned  whatever  good  things  are 
set  down  here. 

Ella  Frances  Lynch. 


EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


EDUCATING 
THE   CHILD   AT  HOME 


PERSONALITY    AND  OFFICIALISM 

THE  child's  education  begins  even  before  the 
moment  of  awakening  consciousness,  when 
**baby  begins  to  take  notice/*  From  then  on  his 
learning  should  be  progressing  every  waking 
moment. 

The  mother,  therefore,  must  be  recognized  as 
his  natural  teacher  during  the  early  and  impres- 
sionable years.  When  it  comes  to  the  more  formal 
training  the  mother,  imfortimately,  loses  confi- 
dence in  her  own  ability  and  feels  it  necessary, 
at  no  matter  what  cost  to  her  feelings,  to  siurender 
her  child  to  substitutes  who  are  supposed  to  be 
better  prepared  for  the  task.  The  official  inter- 
ference with  the  freedom  and  sanctity  of  family 
and  home  begins. 


2'      EDl^CATING.  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

One  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  encourage 
mothers  to  resume  and  do  their  sacred  duty  by 
their  children  by  retaining  direct  control  over 
the  education  of  their  little  ones.  What  these 
mothers  need  to  realize  is  that  a  child  is  most 
unfortunate  if  his  mother  is  not  a  better  teacher 
for  him  in  his  earlier  years  than  he  will  ever  meet 
in  the  class-room.  With  proper  individual  in- 
struction, essential  at  this  period  of  life,  every 
normal  child  can  accomplish  in  four  hours  of  daily 
work  for  four  years  results  which  are  not  now 
attained  in  eight  years  and  eight  weary  hours  a 
day.  Only  under  right  conditions  can  this  be 
done.  The  great  truth,  long  forgotten,  but  re- 
asserting itself  again  more  and  more,  all  adverse 
influences  notwithstanding,  is  that  the  home  and 
the  home  only  is  the  fundamental  basis  for  all 
true  education.  The  mother^s  lap  is  a  more  suit- 
able place  for  early  teaching  than  the  most  mag- 
nificent and  best-equipped  kindergarten  on  earth. 
Her  belief  in  the  worth  and  possibilities  of  her 
own  child  quaHfies  her  as  the  educator  par  ex- 
cellence. It  is  her  sacred  duty  before  God  and 
man  to  live  up  to  it.  The  best-intentioned  teach- 
er in  the  world  can  never  feel  the  personal  interest 
in  her  pupils  that  a  mother  feels  for  her  offspring. 
The  most  willing  child  can  never  have  in  his 
teacher  the  absolute  unshakable  trust  he  places 
in  his  mother.  Every  good  teacher  realizes  this 
and  imderstands  that  there  is  a  limit  beyond 
which  she  cannot  go  and  should  not  dare  to  go  to 


PERSONALITY  AND  OFFICIALISM         3 

assist  the  child.  The  holy  of  holies,  forbidden 
to  the  professional  teacher,  is  the  mother's,  and 
blessed  is  the  child  who  has  received  his  primary 
and  primal  instruction  from  that  fount.  In- 
tuition, tmflagging  interest,  an  incentive  actuated 
by  love,  helpful  sympathy — all  these  place  the 
mother  high  above  the  professional  educator. 

Many  a  mother  feels  and  realizes  this.  Dis- 
trust of  her  own  scholarship  and  teaching-ability 
makes  her  hesitate  to  asstime  the  task.  She 
should  thrust  aside  her  fears.  I  have  never 
known,  in  all  my  experience,  a  child  taught  at 
home  to  read,  write,  or  compute  w'ho  failed  to 
hold  his  own  in  school.  In  rare  instances  only 
did  the  mothers  who  taught  their  children  rank 
high  in  scholarship.  Moreover,  the  little  one  was 
fortified  with  that  deep-reaching  religious  and 
moral  training  which  no  school  can  impart,  and 
his  future  was  brightened  and  assisted  thereby 
beyond  compute. 

What  I  conceive  to  be  errors  militating  against 
the  child  as  an  individual,  under  the  modem 
system  of  public-school  education,  I  have  de- 
scribed in  the  chapters  that  follow.  Why  I  con- 
sider them  errors  I  have  pointed  out  with  such 
clarity  as  I  could  command.  In  whatever  criti- 
cisms I  have  indulged  I  have  endeavored  to  re- 
frain from  any  more  severity  than  I  believe  neces- 
sary to  accentuate  the  value  of  the  individual 
method  of  reaching  the  inner  sensibilities  of  the 
child.     I  might,  perhaps,  embrace  in  a  paragraph 


4       EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

the  whole  argument  for  the  revision  of  the  modern 
school  methods  of  teaching:  ** If  a  school  is  going 
to  amount  to  anything  as  a  preparation  for  life, 
why  not  make  it  Hfelike?  A  life-work  cannot  be 
reduced  to  a  mathematical  equation,  nor  are  men 
outside  of  the  school-room  walls  foolish  enough 
to  think  that  it  can.'*  Mere  stuffing  the  mind 
with  knowledge  results  in  a  lethargy,  maybe  in 
absolute  stupor.  To  educate  properly,  to  nourish 
the  mind,  we  must  apply  the  laws  of  biology.  A 
defect  in  education  means  a  defect  in  mental  and 
physical  life. 

One  requisite  of  education  is  proper  mental 
environment.  The  child  has  large  ideas.  He 
must  have  room  for  them.  Until  the  public- 
school  system  has  undergone  the  reconstruction 
work  now  promised  by  our  educators,  and  the 
spotlight  has  been  turned  from  the  workings  of 
the  system  to  the  needs  of  the  child,  the  parents 
must  take  a  hand  in  the  education  of  their 
children. 

In  outlining  a  plan  of  home  instruction  this 
book  deals  but  sparingly  with  the  theory  of  edu- 
cation, and  contents  itself  with  marshaling  plain 
facts  and  essential  principles.  Some  chapters 
strike  a  new  note.  The  chapter  on  arithmetic 
alone  would  justify  the  publication  of  the  book. 
A  steady  adherence  to  the  principles  therein  pre- 
sented insures  the  child's  becoming  an  indepen- 
dent worker,  and  in  many  cases  developing  the 
power  and  the  will  to  pursue  alone  the  study  of 


PERSONALITY  AND  OFFICIALISM         5 

mathematics.  In  presenting  the  arithmetic  les- 
sons I  have  followed  a  straight  and  tmquestion- 
ably  practical  plan  that  has  been  tried  and  suc- 
cessfully used  by  other  teachers. 

The  chapter  on  poetry  marks  the  difference 
between  natural  and  artificial  methods.  It  shows 
that  poetry,  as  the  language  of  childhood,  should 
constitute  the  foundation  of  the  work.  This 
fact,  though  not  questioned  by  thinking  people, 
has,  so  far  as  I  know,  not  been  recognized  by 
educators  in  its  bearings  on  mind  development. 
A  proper  application  of  this  one  truth  is  likely 
to  mark  the  difference  between  real  success  and 
a  feeble  imitation.  We  know,  of  course,  that  the 
schools  make  use  of  verses  and  short  poems,  but 
they  persistently  neglect  the  fine,  long,  continu- 
ous compositions,  the  mastery  of  which  develops 
in  the  child  the  power  of  sustained  concen- 
tration. 

A  third  chapter  dwells  upon  the  qualifications 
of  the  mother  as  a  natural  educator.  Home 
training  during  the  first  ten  years  means  so  much 
that,  personally,  I  have  come  to  regard  it  as 
paramotmt  in  education.  The  school  at  its  very 
best  can  only  be  an  auxiliary.  It  is,  after  all, 
nothing  but  a  wholly  artificial  institution  which 
is  an  outgrowth  of  the  parents*  shirking  of  their 
highest  duty  to  unload  it  upon  paid  substitutes. 
Let  once  the  majority  comprehend  that  it  is  only 
by  training  the  child  at  home,  with  church  and 
school  as  auxiliaries,  that  an  efficient  instruction 


6       EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

can  be  imparted,  and  the  pressure  of  united  opin- 
ion will  have  its  effect  in  breaking  down  the  walls 
of  adherence  to  the  past.  With  their  downfall 
will  go  the  fallacy  of  believing  that  education  can 
be  imparted  in  bulk  as  a  grocer  dispenses  sugar 
and  flour,  or  that  fixed  rules  and  formulas  are 
vital  to  success. 

The  first  chapters  outline  briefly  what  are  ac- 
cepted as  the  most  striking  evils  of  the  present 
system  of  public  instruction,  and  add  sugges- 
tions for  reconstruction.  The  remaining  chap- 
ters give  simple  plans  for  teaching  the  child 
either  at  home  or  in  the  small  neighborhood 
schools  for  individual  instruction,  that  are  prov- 
ing such  a  success  in  different  parts  of  the  United 
States. 

Like  the  long  search  for  the  Promised  Land  is 
the  search  for  an  efficient  school,  while  the  great 
opportunity  of  home  instruction  and  education 
is  ignored.  Where  shall  I  find  the  best  school 
for  my  children  ?  Teach  them  yourself  the  things 
you  know  and  can  do. 

Since  I  introduced  and  successfully  used  this 
method  of  teaching  I  have  had  a  vast  nimiber  of 
requests  for  explicit  instructions  and  definite 
methods  from  correspondents,  parents,  teachers, 
and  from  numerous  readers  of  my  articles  in  the 
Ladies'  Home  Journal  on  **Can  I  Educate  My 
Child  at  Home?'*  In  many  of  these  communica- 
tions from  mothers  I  read  with  pleasure  words 
like  these:   **I  knew,  after  reading  your  articles, 


PERSONALITY  AND  OFFICIALISM         7 

that  I  could  do  it.  It  seems  so  easy."  Let  me 
add,  *' You  never  know  what  you  can  do  until  you 
try." 

"What  connection  has  your  plan  with  the 
Montessori  system?"  I  have  been  asked  by  many 
other  mothers.  The  work,  as  outlined  in  the 
following  chapters,  though  not  necessarily  pre- 
supposing Montessori  training,  will  be  greatly 
facilitated  and  furthered  thereby,  especially  if  the 
child  has  had  such  careful  and  thoughtful  training 
from  babyhood  as  any  good  mother,  with  the  help 
of  such  a  book  as  the  Montessori  System,  is  quali- 
fied to  give. 

That  the  rigid  rules  of  study  in  our  present 
schools  apply  to  the  mentally  alert  in  exactly  the 
same  way  as  they  do  to  those  slow  of  intellect 
and  the  dullard  is  a  discovery  not  original  with 
me.  Many  wise  and  good  men  among  our  edu- 
cators have  deplored  the  barrenness  of  results 
from  our  public-school  system.  What  shall  be 
the  remedy?  Until  there  shall  occur  a  general 
rearrangement  of  the  school  curriculum,  individual 
assertion  of  the  teacher  and  individual  develop- 
ment of  the  pupil  are  impossible. 

The  keynote  of  this  entire  book  is  work,  the 
formation  of  habits  of  work.  So  train  the  little 
child  that,  were  he  thrown  upon  his  own  resources 
as  early  as  ten,  he  would  know  how  to  work, 
would  have  the  desire  to  learn,  the  ability  to  pur- 
sue, even  without  a  teacher,  the  studies  that  ap- 
peal to  him.  Part  of  this  equipment  should  be 
2 


8       EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

the  practical  home  training  that  will  enable  liim 
even  at  that  age  to  earn  his  keep.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  the  child  of  ten,  who  lacks  the 
habit  of  work,  has  not  been  given  the  kind  of 
start  that  will  lead  to  real  education. 


II 

OUR  PUBLIC-SCHOOL   SYSTEM   ON  TRIAL 

ONCE  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  king  who  was 
very  fond  of  fine  clothes.  He  spent  most  of 
the  day  with  his  Master  of  Robes,  changing  from 
one  gorgeous  costume  to  another.  One  day  two 
rogues  came  to  him  who  said:  **0  King,  we  can 
weave  for  you  the  richest  and  most  beautiful 
cloth  ever  seen,  in  rare  and  wonderful  colors; 
therefrom  we  shall  make  you  a  robe  such  as  was 
never  worn  by  any  prince.  Besides  its  beauty, 
this  cloth  will  have  the  valuable  property  of  being 
invisible  to  the  ignorant  and  to  those  unworthy 
of  their  office.  May  it  please  your  Majesty  to 
give  us  plenty  of  gold  and  fine  silks,  and  we  shall 
set  at  once  about  our  task.'* 

Without  the  least  delay  the  king  engaged  them 
for  their  work,  intrusting  them  with  generous 
sums  of  gold  and  quantities  of  costly  silk.  These 
the  rogues  kept  for  themselves,  but  pretended  to 
weave  on  their  looms  an  invisible  fabric  of  in- 
visible warp  and  woof.  Day  after  day  they 
wrought  at  the  magical  task,  consulting  with 
each  other  as  to  color  and  design,  until  a  goodly 


lo     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

portion  seemed  completed.  When  the  king  came 
to  examine  his  robe  in  the  weaving  he  could  see 
nothing,  although  the  rascals  pointed  out  to  him 
the  beautiful  hues  and  texture.  *'Can  it  be  that 
I  am  not  worthy  of  my  high  office  ?"  he  questioned, 
inwardly,  but  at  once  went  into  raptures  over  the 
priceless  workmanship.  Then  he  called  in  his 
chief  officers  of  the  court.  They,  too,  were  over- 
come by  the  wonders  of  the  magic  weave. 

Now  came  the  day  when  the  work  was  com- 
pleted, the  dress  itself  fashioned  by  the  two 
rogues,  and  the  king  dressed  in  it  to  march  at  the 
head  of  a  royal  procession  to  church.  All  his 
subjects  had  heard  of  the  king*s  robe  and  its 
magic  properties.  Although  they  could  discern 
nothing,  each  feared  to  speak  his  mind  and  so  to 
prove  himself  unworthy  or  else  basely  ignorant. 

So  the  king  marched  ahead  in  majesty,  while 
two  courtiers  carried  his  invisible  train,  until  the 
voice  of  a  little  child  was  heard  saying,  **Look  at 
the  king;  he  has  nothing  on!"  And  all  at  once 
the  scales  fell  from  the  people's  eyes.  His  poor, 
shivering  Majesty  was  standing  there  disgraced, 
shivering  in  his  nakedness,  crestfallen  and  dis- 
concerted. 

So  it  is  with  our  people  and  our  public-school 
system.  On  the  wane  are  the  days  when  rabid 
rhetoric,  fulsome  flattery,  pretentious  peroration 
were  lavished  in  lauding  to  the  skies  the  mag- 
nificence of  that  great  institution.     The  pendulum 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM  ON  TRIAL     ii 

has  now  swung  to  the  far  point  opposite,  until  it 
has  become  the  fashion  to  go  to  extremes,  to 
pitilessly  impugn  what  was  once  the  rousing  topic 
of  the  campaign  orator,  from  the  President  down- 
ward. To-day  our  schools  and  our  teachers  are 
blamed  for  all  evils,  from  the  decadence  of  English 
poetry  to  the  bad  manners  of  our  children. 

And  behold,  who  are  the  foremost  to  publicly 
confess  that  they  no  longer  see  that  chimerically 
beauteous  fabric  woven  around  our  public-school 
system,  and  to  demand  with  iconoclastic  fanati- 
cism its  destruction  and  reconstruction? 

The  parents,  who  find  their  children  lacking  in 
obedience,  in  manners,  in  discipline,  in  becoming 
modesty,  in  self-restraint,  in  will-power. 

The  ministerSy  who  find  the  growing  generation 
absent  from  church  and  chapel;  unruly  and  irrev- 
erent at  Sunday-school — or,  rather,  at  the  Simday- 
school  picnics  and  entertainments — without  faith 
in  God  and  without  a  holy  fear  of  Him. 

The  teacherSy  who,  as  the  pupils  year  after  year 
are  promoted  to  their  grades,  find  them  less  and 
less  prepared  for  the  work  rigidly  mapped  out  by 
the  system,  less  and  less  boyish  and  girlish, 
frivolous,  flippant,  full  of  self-assurance  and  self- 
conceit. 

The  pedagogues^  who  used  to  preach  enlarge- 
ment and  extension,  and  now  in  sackcloth  and 
ashes  sue  for  retrenchment  and  curtailment. 

The  statesmefiy  who  fear  that  our  public  schools 
do  not  help  to  train  our  boys  to  conform  to  the 


12     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

desired  type  of  desirable  citizens  and  our  girls 
for  the  duties  of  wifehood  and  motherhood, 
but  rather  supply  material  for  the  ranks  of  athe- 
ists and  anarchists  and  grist  for  the  divorce- 
mill. 

The  business  men,  who  are  sadly  in  want  of  com- 
petent clerks  and  willing  workmen,  and  cannot 
find  for  these  positions  boys  trained  to  do  faith- 
ful and  accurate  work,  to  put  forth  their  best 
efforts,  to  understand  that  hard  and  patient  work 
must  precede  success,  to  admit  that  respect  and 
obedience  are  due  to  their  elders  and  superiors,  and 
to  realize  that  they  must  first  be  good  learners 
before  becoming  earners. 

The  physicians,  who  ascribe  the  many  cases  of 
spinal  curvature,  defective  eyesight,  and  such 
ailments  to  the  slouching  posture  of  the  children 
in  school  bench  and  desk,  and  to  unsanitary  con- 
ditions in  the  schools. 

Now  what  are,  by  almost  general  consent,  the 
reasons  given  for  these  criticisms  .f^ 

The  schools  are  overcrowded.  One  teacher  is 
given  the  impossible  task  of  instructing  from  forty 
to  eighty  undisciplined  children  simultaneously, 
of  keeping  order  among  them,  and  of  stimulating 
them  to  work  by  moral  suasion.  Moral  suasion, 
indeed ! 

The  course  of  study  is  overcrowded.  An  effort 
is  made  to  teach  the  children  twice  as  many  things 
— not  twice  as  much — as  did  the  schools  of  fifty 
years  ago,  although  statistics  do  not  show  ap- 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM   ON   TRIAL     13 

preciably  increased  brain  power  through  ever  so 
many  generations. 

The  course  of  study  is  not  planned  with  a  view 
to  the  different  stages  of  mental  development. 
Subjects  are  taught  that  are  absolutely  alien  to  a 
child's  mind  and  must  imbue  it  with  such  rampant 
self-conceit  that  it  imagines  it  could  have  created 
the  v/orld  in  a  much  more  scientific  and  acceptable 
way  than  the  Maker. 

The  time  allotted  to  those  subjects — time  not 
only  wasted  but  misapplied  for  directly  harmful 
ends — leaves  insufficient  time  for  such  essentials 
as  work,  making  an  honest  effort,  reading  in- 
telligently, writing  legibly  and  correctly,  and  doing 
correctly  and  speedily  the  simplest  problems  in 
arithmetic.  While  visiting  a  fifth-grade  class  of 
foreign-born  children  not  long  ago,  they  were 
found  occupied  with  a  test  in  history.  The  dis- 
heartened teacher  explained  that  the  period  was 
being  wasted  on  this  test,  although  the  children 
had  no  conception  of  the  subject  itself,  and  they 
could  not  even  read  the  book  inteUigently.  She 
added:  *'If  we  were  only  permitted  to  spend  this 
additional  period  daily  on  reading  and  English, 
the  children  could  be  taught  something,  but  we 
have  no  time  for  practical  things.  They  cannot 
yet  write  the  simplest  letter,  although  *  letter- 
writing'  has  been  on  their  schedule  since  second 
grade.'* 

The  inelastic  and  uniform  course  is  shallow, 
conglomerate,  and  incomplete,  devised  with  the 


14     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

idea  of  meeting  the  needs  of  children  from  every 
sort  of  home,  of  every  degree  of  intelligence, 
blessed  or  cursed  with  every  kind  of  inheritance, 
of  every  nationality  and  color. 

The  practice  of  our  schools  is  not  adequate  to 
the  sine  qua  nons  of  our  deepest  thinkers  on  edu- 
cation. As  Ruskin  says:  *' Modern  *  education,* 
for  the  most  part,  signifies  giving  people  the  facul- 
ty of  thinking  wrong  on  every  conceivable  subject 
of  importance  to  them.*' 

The  work  is  planned  for  the  average  child,  ir- 
respective of  the  fact  that  a  child  is  either  one 
child  or  another  child — that  you  cannot  general- 
ize with  things  that  are  different  from  one  another. 

The  bright  child  is  not  getting  a  ** square  deal.** 
He  is  marking  time,  waiting  for  the  lame  duck  to 
catch  up. 

We  are  frequently  classifying  as  stupid,  **not 
up  to  grade,"  the  pupils  whose  intelligence  is 
above  the  requirements,  and  who  therefore  fail 
to  fit  into  the  prescribed  groove. 

The  rigorous  grading  and  the  rigid  curriculum 
of  the  elementary  school  lead  step  by  step  to  the 
high-school  door,  although  less  than  ten  per  cent, 
of  the  pupils  will  receive  what  is  called  a  high- 
school  education. 

The  period  of  dependency  is  unnecessarily  and 
unprofitably  prolonged,  so  that  a  young  man  en- 
ters a  business  or  professional  career  considerably 
later  than  he  would  in  Europe. 

Money  is  wasted  in  supervision  and  in  paying 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM  ON  TRIAL     15 

high  salaries  to  principals  whose  time  is  chiefly 
employed  in  clerical  work.  In  this  way  not  only 
are  time,  money,  and  energy  wasted,  but  this 
exasperating  dependency  upon  the  ideas,  fads,  or 
whims  of  the  principal,  the  district  superintend- 
ent, the  special  supervisors  of  writing,  drawing, 
manual  training,  and  physical  culture,  and  their 
respective  assistants,  and  forced  to  teach  from 
the  angle  she  deems  most  gratifying  to  each  of 
these  superiors,  the  poor  teacher  finds  her  self- 
confidence  so  weakened  that  instead  of  growing 
stronger  with  each  year's  experience  in  the  class- 
room she  is  becoming  a  less  efficient  teacher,  if  a 
more  obedient  time-server  and  politician.  Said 
one  teacher  not  long  ago  in  her  class-room,  to  a 
visitor:  ''There  will  not  be  a  single  supervisor 
popping  into  my  room  to-day;  I  am  going  to 
shut  the  door  and  teach  the  children  something/' 
A  primary  teacher  visiting  an  experimental  school 
recently,  expressed  the  wish  that  she  might  be 
allowed  to  try  in  her  own  grade  the  plan  for  teach- 
ing reading — the  plan  laid  down  in  this  book. 
**  Would  not  the  principal  permit  you  to  try  such 
a  plan?*'  she  was  asked.  **Yes,"  she  replied; 
*'but  if  the  results  at  the  end  of  the  month  did 
not  fully  satisfy  him  he  would  mark  me  C  on  the 
report,  and  my  salary  would  be  lowered  five  dol- 
lars. I  cannot  afford  to  risk  the  experiment.*' 
The  only  hope  of  promotion  and  increased  salary 
lies  in  absolute  conformity  to  the  system  and  in 
unswerving  devotion  to  routine. 


i6     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

So  much  emphasis  is  placed  upon  tests  and 
examinations  that  teachers  and  pupils  lose  sight 
of  any  purpose  of  instruction  other  than  to  attain 
the  passing-mark. 

Instruction  is  so  methodized,  so  analyzed  and 
synthesized,  that  the  human  relation  is  lost 
sight  of. 

In  regard  to  many  of  these  indictments,  it  may 
be  conceded  that  they  are  due  to  inherent  weak- 
nesses of  the  flesh.  Many  of  them,  however,  show 
more  and  more  pronounced  symptoms  of  malig- 
nant diseases  with  each  succeeding  year.  Yet 
even  this  is  neither  proof  nor  indication  that  sound 
public  instruction  is  to  become  a  thing  of  the  past. 

Without  any  attempt  at  exhaustive  analysis 
let  us  consider  one  by  one  some  of  the  factors 
militating  against  our  common  schools  yielding 
better  results.  Beginning  with  the  district  school 
employing  but  one  teacher,  we  find  the  morbid 
ambition  to  imitate  the  curriculum  of  the  care- 
fully graded  city  school,  much  as  if  a  family  keep- 
ing one  servant  aspired  to  the  pretentious  stand- 
ards of  the  household  maintaining  twenty  helpers. 

Why  should  the  one-room  school  with  ten  to 
forty  pupils  in  a  farming  community  be  ashamed 
to  stand  forth  in  its  true  and  purposeful  character, 
proud  of  a  noble  past,  yet  living  in  the  present,  in- 
stead of  giving  to  itself  village  airs,  wasting 
strength  and  substance  to  attain  the  questionable 
prerogative  of  being  able  to  label  each  of  its 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM   ON  TRIAL      17 

pupils  as  first  grade,  third  grade,  full  grade,  be- 
hind grade,  or  graduated?  The  grading  system, 
introduced  in  big  schools  to  make  possible  the 
handling  of  children  in  large  herds,  and  for  no 
other  good  purpose,  becomes  a  fetish,  and  is  be- 
held in  the  light  of  unreasoning  devotion.  Even 
in  the  little  and  remote  country  school-house, 
wherein  the  number  of  pupils  is  blessedly  re- 
stricted, the  teacher,  the  school-board,  and  the 
county  superintendent  dream  of  converting  it 
into  a  ** graded**  school.  Keeping  in  mind  that 
the  purpose  of  the  school  is  to  teach  the  young 
how  to  harmoniously  fit  themselves  into  their 
surroundings,  and  to  enable  its  pupils  to  use  what- 
ever capabilities  they  possess  in  any  and  all  op- 
portunities that  may  arise,  or  in  the  face  of  diffi- 
culties that  may  crowd  around  them,  may  it  not 
be  contended  that  the  tmgraded  country  school, 
with  from  ten  to  twenty  children,  can  well  be- 
come the  ideal  school — that  its  possibilities  for 
good  are  limited  only  by  the  measure  of  the  ear- 
nest, practical  ideaHsm  of  the  teacher,  conjointly 
with  the  sturdy,  self-reliant,  self-believing  co- 
operation of  the  parents?  In  such  schools  and 
communities  as  these  were  trained  the  men  of  dis- 
tinctive character,  the  men  who  were  types,  the 
men  to  whom  America  owes  her  greatness.  With 
the  futile  effort  to  imitate  city  standards,  the 
virility  of  the  country  school  has  departed,  nor 
will  it  return  until  the  day,  now  approaching, 
when  we  return  to  the  plan  of  substituting  the 


i8     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

good  of  the  individual  for  the  demands  of  the 
curriculum,  and  the  pupils  again  become  the 
center  of  gravity. 

The  plan  of  the  country  school  of  fifty  years 
ago,  with  its  faults  and  shortcomings,  more  near- 
ly approached  the  plan  of  individual  instruction 
than  is  permitted  by  our  over-nice,  crammed  mod- 
em course  of  study.  Healthy  boys  and  girls  were 
given  tasks  commensurate  with  their  strength;  a 
piece  of  work  completed,  the  day  was  not  rounded 
out  with  *'busy  work,'*  but  by  mastering  another 
page  of  the  arithmetic.  Promotions  were  not 
scheduled  simply  for  year-ends,  but  came  on 
whatever  day  the  ambitious  student  proved  him- 
self ready  to  do  the  work  of  the  next  higher 
class.  The  spelling-book,  dictionary,  arithmetic, 
and  a  reader  that  was  a  reader  were  the  most  im- 
portant books.  Such  tasks  as  the  memorizing  of 
masterly  orations,  Longfellow's  *'EvangeUne,'* 
and  similar  compositions,  laid  the  foimdation  for 
the  life-work  of  many  a  noted  orator,  writer,  or 
statesman.  Seldom  indeed  was  the  intelligence 
of  the  child  insulted  by  tasks  beneath  its  strength. 
His  arithmetic  was  mental,  and  dealt  with  every- 
day problems — ^given  the  dimensions  of  a  bin, 
and  ninety  seconds  for  thought,  the  boy  of  thir- 
teen would  tell  you  how  many  bushels  of  oats 
were  contained  therein.  If  he  was  told  that 
Deacon  West's  haymow  measured  20  feet  by  20 
feet  and  was  12  feet  high,  something  less  than  a 
minute  brought  forth  the  approximate  number  of 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM  ON  TRIAL     19 

tons,  worked  out  by  the  *'rule  of  thumb/' 
Furthermore,  a  thoughtful  inspection  of  the  same 
haymow  would  enable  these  boys  to  estimate  the 
number  of  tons,  without  having  recourse  to  actual 
measurement.  To-day  the  practice  of  drilling  in 
mental  arithmetic  has  nearly  died  out  in  such  com- 
mtinities — ^in  all  communities — chiefly  because  the 
results  are  not  readily  measurable  by  grade  exami- 
nations. 

If  the  truth  were  told,  it  is  probable  that  the 
majority  of  dwellers  in  rural  territory  are  short- 
sighted enough  to  lament  the  lack  of  fancied 
educational  advantages  for  their  children,  and 
deplore  the  want  of  resources  prohibiting  their 
removal  to  the  proximity  of  a  village  or  city 
school.  Mere  bulk  stands  to  most  of  us  for  great- 
ness. The  machinery  of  the  fine,  large  school, 
devised  solely  for  administrative 'reasons,  seems 
to  promise  a  product  superior  to  that  produced 
by  the  best  efforts  of  the  relatively  simple,  un- 
supervised, impretentious  workings  of  the  district 
school. 

But  perhaps  nowhere  in  our  school  system, 
from  district  school  to  university,  is  there  an  in- 
stitution so  totally  apart  from  its  immediate  prac- 
tical surroundings,  so  lacking  in  preparation  for 
complete  living,  so  void  of  the  life  that  trains 
mind  and  heart  and  muscle,  as  the  school  of  the 
small  town  with  its  mongrel  course  of  study. 
Child  life  in  the  small  town  might  well  combine 
many  of  the  best  features  of  the  rural  community 


20     EDUCATING   THE  CHILD  AT   HOME 

with  the  less  objectionable  characteristics  of  ur- 
ban surroundings.  The  school  that  seizes  upon 
such  opportunities  contributes  to  the  molding 
of  desirable  citizens.  Instead,  we  find  in  nearly 
every  case  that  the  end  and  aim  of  the  school  is 
to  rush  its  pupils  through  a  number  of  subjects 
having  little  relation  to  present  or  future  existence, 
to  be  enrolled  among  the  graduates  from  the  high 
school.  What  comes  after  that  has  had  little 
serious  consideration,  as  if  that  *' coming  after" 
were  not  the  most  important  phase  of  living.  A 
young  man  recently  graduated  from  a  university 
remarked;  **I  have  just  commenced  to  wonder 
what  it  is  all  about.  From  the  time  I  was  six 
until  I  was  eighteen  I  was  made  to  work  as  hard 
as  I  could  for  just  one  purpose — to  go  to  college; 
and  then  for  seven  years  I  worked  as  hard  as  I 
could  to  get  out  again/' 

From  kindergarten  to  senior  graduation  the 
child  passes  through  a  world  of  contradictions 
and  strange  unrealities  that  may  well  be  named 
topsyturvy  land.  He  is  taught  to  skip,  jump,  and 
plan  games  by  a  teacher  who  cannot  skip  or  jump 
as  well  as  her  pupils,  by  a  teacher  whose  inventive 
genius  for  devising  games  and  ** make-believe*'  is 
sadly  inferior  to  his  own.  Lessons  in  nature  study 
are  learned  from  a  book  and  pictures,  while  the 
great  outdoors  is  calling  him  to  study  at  first 
hand.  One  or  two  nature  lessons  a  week  or  a 
sweet  little  stereotyped  talk  of  a  morning  on  the 
subject,  or  a  rushing  through  the  assigned  topics 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM   ON   TRIAL     21 

for  the  yeax  in  the  space  of  a  week  or  two,  to  meet 
the  requirements — no  connection  here  with  Hfe. 
Subjects  taught  at  the  wrong  time — fed  on  defini- 
tions and  mathematics  during  the  most  imagina- 
tive early  years,  then  later  on  with  poetry  just 
when  the  reasoning  powers  manifest  themselves 
and  demand  different  food.  Mathematics  are 
taught  as  memory  subjects,  and  literary  master- 
pieces for  analysis.  So  many  different  bits  of 
work  are  attempted  in  a  day  that  much  of  the 
time  is  spent  in  starting  and  stopping,  the  dis- 
tance between  stations  being  scarcely  marked. 
The  contour  of  Africa  is  taught  better  than  that 
of  the  native  county ;  the  pupils  trace  the  course 
of  the  Amazon,  but  scarcely  know,  beyond  the 
dealer's  cart,  the  source  of  the  village  milk-supply. 
They  learn  of  the  hardships  and  intrepidity  of  the 
early  settlers,  but  lack  the  willingness  to  persevere 
in  a  hard  or  distasteful  task  until  success  comes. 
They  write  wordy  graduation  essays  on  our  for- 
eign policy,  that  must  be  carefully  pruned  of 
misspelled  words,  incomplete  sentences,  slang 
and  verbiage,  before  they  are  in  shape  to 
be  read  before  a  breathlessly  admiring  audi- 
ence. 

The  picture  is  underdrawn.  I  repeat,  that  the 
training  afforded  by  the  majority  of  village  schools 
is  so  needlessly  complex  and  remote  from  life  as 
to  be  a  poorer  preparation  for  living  than  is  the 
ungraded  district  school,  or  the  great  city  system 
with  its  overwhelming  disadvantages,  the  latter 


22     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

being  only  a  very  complex  part  of  a  great  com- 
plexity. 

Can  we  harshly  denounce  the  city  teacher  for 
giving  a  lesson  on  the  dandelion  with  only  a 
picture  of  the  flower  and  a  printed  description  as 
help?  Our  first  feeling,  instead,  is  one  of  pity 
for  the  children  encompassed  by  an  environment 
inimical  even  to  the  hardy  dandelion,  except  in  a 
picture.  And  the  second,  very  likely,  is  an  im- 
pulse of  admiration  for  the  teacher  who  could 
bring  any  semblance  of  the  reality  of  nature  into 
prison-Uke  surroundings. 

But  charitable  reflections  must  not  stay  us 
from  a  critical  survey  of  the  accepted  pattern  of 
standardized  instruction,  and  from  an  equitable 
judging  of  its  effectiveness  in  contrast  with  its 
possibilities. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  are  enimierated 
the  findings  of  the  critics  on  the  public -school 
system  in  general.  These  criticisms  apply  in 
nearly  every  case  to  the  unwieldy  city  system, 
and  in  a  lesser  degree  to  the  town  and  country 
school,  whose  servile  imitation  of  city  standards 
has  brought  them  low. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  public  school,  when 
between  teacher  and  pupil  there  existed  a  human 
and  individual  relationship,  when  the  rights  of 
the  parents  were  recognized  in  the  scheme  of  edu- 
cation, the  measurement  of  a  school's  efficiency 
lay  in  the  ultimate  gain  to  the  children.  That 
was  the  day  of  close  relationships  insured  by  a 


PUBLIC-SCHOOL  SYSTEM  ON  TRIAL     23 

small  cycle — the  child,  the  teacher,  and  the  home 
— the  day  of  the  relatively  unimportant  adjuncts 
of  school-board  and  superintendent. 

The  present  epoch,  however,  from  backwoods 
to  city,  marks  a  complete  revolution  in  education- 
al affairs.  The  old  cycle  is  broken.  The  school 
is  no  longer  responsive  to  the  home.  The  child, 
the  parent,  and  the  teacher  are  but  the  relatively 
unimportant  adjuncts  of  the  monster  syndicate, 
embodying  less  bulky  corporations  of  school- 
boards  and  schoolmen. 

It  is  one  thing  to  establish  and  promote  an 
all-powerful  school  system  and  quite  another 
thing  to  promote  the  highest  welfare  of  the  chil- 
dren. The  only  real  good  is  the  good  that  reaches 
the  child.  One  of  the  vital  differences  between 
the  old  cycle  and  the  new  monopoly  seems  to  be 
in  the  relation  occupied  by  the  teacher.  Put 
the  teacher  in  the  position  of  knowing  that  the 
parents  have  neither  voice  nor  authority.  Is  it 
absurd  to  say  that  she  will  be  influenced  ad- 
versely to  the  highest  interests  of  the  child  ?  The 
teacher  soon  learns  that  her  future  depends,  not 
upon  the  quality  of  her  work,  not  upon  pleasing 
the  parents,  but  upon  kowtowing  to  those  in 
power. 
3 


Ill 

HOW  TO   DO  BETTER 

DO  the  critics  of  the  public-school  system  bear 
in  mind  that  there  is  frequently  an  unyield- 
ing difference  between  what  is  desirable  and  what 
is  attainable?  Denunciation  of  existing  condi- 
tions is  useless  unless  a  remedy  can  be  proposed. 
Would  anybody  be  so  rash  as  to  believe  that  a 
reconstruction  of  the  public-school  system  could 
be  effected  with  the  certainty,  the  scientific  exact- 
ness, of  even  such  a  marvelous  undertaking  as  the 
digging  of  an  interocean  canal? 

But  if,  after  patient  consideration  of  the  multi- 
tudinous allegations  made  against  the  present 
wasteful  and  ineffective  scheme,  we  arrive  at 
plans  for  betterment  that  have  the  thoughtful 
sanction  of  schoolmen,  shrewd  men  of  business, 
and  other  thoughtful  minds,  we  may  venture  to 
set  before  the  public  our  opinions  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  the  discussion  of  a  vexing  problem. 

The  general  criticisms  enumerated  in  the  fore- 
going chapter  may  be  divided  into  two  classes. 
The  one  comprising  criticisms  of  such  peculiar 
local  or  deep-rooted  nature  as  to  make  any  at- 


HOW  TO   DO  BETTER  25 

tempt  at  betterment  appear  futile;  the  other 
comprising  such  defects  as  admit  remedial  dis- 
cussion and  immediate  redress.  Our  criticism 
should  mainly  and  properly  be  directed  against 
the  cumbrous  city  system,  and  in  a  lesser  degree 
against  the  smaller  organizations  of  town  and 
country  schools  which  draw  these  criticisms  to 
themselves  by  attempting  conformity  to  an  arti- 
ficial standard  instead  of  making  a  courageous 
stand  against  it.  Thus,  the  outlook  is  more  dis- 
couraging for  the  city  schools  than  for  the  aping 
town  and  country  schools. 

Now  the  city  may  not  improperly  ask  the  fault- 
finders : 

Tell  us  how  we  are  to  avoid  herding  the  chil- 
dren by  thousands  in  each  building?  How  meet 
the  individual  needs  when  we  must  supervise  and 
direct  teachers  by  the  hundreds  and  children  by 
the  thousands  .f*  How  avoid  shoving  pupils  ahead 
in  regiments  whether  or  not  they  are  fit  for  pro- 
motion when  we  must  make  room  for  the  new 
ones  entering  in  the  lower  grades?  How  avoid 
artificiality  in  teaching  when  the  children  have 
never  experienced  the  joy  of  pulling  a  blade  of 
green  grass?  And  if  we  are  not  to  have  women 
teachers  for  the  boys  in  grammar  and  high  school 
grades  tell  us  where  we  can  find  men  teachers 
thoroughly  trained  and  qualified  for  the  work, 
who  enter  the  teaching  profession  without  the 
mental  reservation  to  get  out  of  it  as  soon  as  an 
extra  one  hundred  dollars  a  year  looms  in  sight? 


26     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Let  us  pass  over  these  pertinent  rejoinders, 
since  the  hope  of  betterment  within  a  measurable 
time  must  be  almost  abandoned,  and  consider 
some  of  the  other  points,  surely  of  no  less  import, 
that  demand  and  admit  mending,  which,  if  ac- 
complished, would  tend  to  make  easier  the  grad- 
ual solution  of  some  of  the  distressing  problems 
previously  touched  upon.  Let  us  take  up  one 
by  one  some  of  those  criticisms  in  the  previous 
chapter,  which  can  and  may  effect  a  speedy 
betterment. 

**The  course  of  study  is  overcrowded.*'  If  so 
many  different  subjects  are  undertaken  that  the 
direct  result  of  school-training  is  lack  of  thorough- 
ness, confusion  of  mind,  and  want  of  abihty  to 
discriminate  between  essentials  and  non-essentials, 
why  not  simply  abolish  the  most  objectionable? 
Is  it  imreasonable  to  propose  elimination  ?  When 
we  consider  the  possibiHties  of  improvement  at- 
tendant upon  such  elimination  the  prospect 
brightens.  Let  us,  for  instance,  take  the  case  of 
the  eleven-year-old  children,  contending  with  an 
assignment  of  eight  lessons,  in  a  school  day  di- 
vided into  as  many  recitation  periods,  with  per- 
haps an  extra  period  each  for  singing,  manual 
training  or  domestic  art,  and  physical  culture. 
Certain  of  these  subjects  are  incontestably  essen- 
tial for  children  of  eleven  to  study.  Therefore, 
instead  of  juggHng  with  each  of  them  in  its  brief 
period  let  us  choose  the  few  of  whose  value  there 
can  be  no  dispute,  and  arrange  the  schedule  so  that 


HOW  TO  DO  BETTER  27 

long  periods  are  given  to  those  few.  Undoubt- 
edly, by  teaching  four  instead  of  eight  subjects  a 
day,  we  obtain  such  desirable  results  as:  thor- 
oughness, continuous  thinking,  and  a  knowledge 
of  what  is  really  essential.  Beyond  question  it  is 
more  profitable  for  a  child  to  study  one  subject 
continuously  for  a  whole  hour  than  to  be  bur- 
dened with  two  subjects  one  half-hour  each.  In- 
stead of  short  separate  periods  for  reading  and 
English  these  may  well  be  taken  as  one  subject. 
Naturally,  we  would  expect  that  the  piece  of  litera- 
ture chosen  as  the  basis  of  such  a  lesson  be  worth 
that  much  time  and  study.  Such  suitable  master- 
pieces are  still  extant,  the  flood  of  grade  readers 
notwithstanding. 

Is  any  school  system  so  massive,  so  complex, 
that  the  simplicity  of  this  suggestion  need  appal 
its  makers  and  guardians?  Or  is  it  only  the  ease 
with  which  it  may  be  carried  out  that  excites 
their  suspicion?  The  suggested  plan  is  for  gen- 
eral appUcation  only.  Details  and  methods  must 
differ  with  the  locality.  Is  the  entire  system  dis- 
rupted if  the  principal  grants  permission  to  the 
fifth-grade  teachers  to  throw  aside  the  frills  and 
see  how  much  improvement  they  can  secure  in 
confining  themselves  to  the  teaching  of  spelling, 
reading,  mental  arithmetic,  writing,  and  the 
ability  to  work  independently?  Let  us  not  for- 
get that  for  many  children  the  fifth  grade  is  the 
last  year  of  schooling. 

**The  course  is  inelastic."    The  subjects,  di- 


28     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

vision  of  time,  and  text-books  are  practically  uni- 
form, not  only  in  the  different  sections  of  the 
same  city,  with  their  heterogeneous  population 
and  needs,  but,  worse  still,  in  all  cities — North, 
South,  East,  and  West.  Where  a  school  popula- 
tion is  foreign-born  the  curriculum  can  well  be 
adjusted  to  fit  the  case.  Reading,  spelling,  and 
EngUsh  should  be  taught  the  greater  portion  of 
the  day.  Arithmetic,  which  is  acquired  with  so 
comparatively  little  effort  by  the  young  of  many 
nationalities,  may  hold  a  subordinate  place  for  a 
time.  But  the  budding  citizens  cannot  be  given 
too  much  suitable  English  work,  much  of  which 
may  well  be  simply  copying  the  reading-lessons. 
The  principal  of  each  individual  school  should 
have  authority  to  adjust  the  course  of  study 
so  as  to  meet  the  needs  of  his  particular 
school. 

**The  period  of  dependency  is  unprofitably 
prolonged."  By  abolishing  the  grammar-school 
course  and  estabHshing  a  thorough,  complete, 
and  self-contained  elementary  course  of  from  eight 
to  nine  years,  each  year's  work  being  strictly 
consecutive  and  developing  gradually  and  steadily 
the  previous  year's  work,  we  should  keep  in  view 
and  attain  the  true  purpose  of  common-school 
instruction,  so  to  train  our  children  that  they 
will  be  fitted  to  take,  in  accordance  with  individual 
circumstances,  their  proper  places  in  this  working 
world,  and,  what  is  of  still  greater  importance,  so 
that  if  they  have  a  desire  to  continue  their  literary 


HOW  TO   DO  BETTER  29 

education  later  on  they  will  be  fidly  equipped  to 
do  so. 

Having  thus  provided  for  the  many  children 
who  must  and  should  go  out  into  the  world  to 
work  at  fourteen  or  fifteen,  we  will  consider  the 
case  of  those  few  whom  circumstances  permit 
and  whom  ability  entitles  to  prepare  for  univer- 
sity, college,  the  higher  pubHc  offices,  the  man- 
agement of  large  commercial,  industrial,  or  agri- 
cultural business,  etc.  The  secondary  course 
should  begin  at  the  age  of  ten  to  permit  of  sound 
preparation  for  the  university.  That  Latin  and 
other  foreign  languages  can  be  thoroughly  taught 
in  four  short  years  of  high  school,  not  to  mention 
the  mathematics  demanded  by  the  college  en- 
trance examinations,  will  no  longer  be  maintained 
by  experienced  teachers  of  these  subjects,  nor 
that  they  can  be  taught  by  those  pernicious, 
quantitative,  and  impressionist  methods  that  in- 
fest our  modem  teaching. 

The  secondary  school  should  offer  two  courses — 
classical,  for  those  who  will  go  to  the  university 
to  fit  themselves  for  a  learned  profession ;  techni- 
cal, laying  more  stress  on  modem  languages  and 
sciences,  for  those  intended  for  other  callings 
demanding  a  more  advanced  and  extensive 
schooling,  than  that  given  by  the  elementary 
school. 

By  such  an  arrangement,  or  by  a  similar  and 
better  one,  a  year  or  more  would  be  saved  in  the 
preparation  for  the  university,  and  the  university 


30     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

authorities  would  no  longer  have  to  deplore  the 
poor  caliber  of  their  students. 

In  his  book  Standards  of  Education,  based  upon 
the  recent  investigation  of  the  elementary  schools 
of  Greater  New  York,  Dr.  McMurry  recommends 
that  such  duties  as  are  purely  clerical  and  require 
no  special  abiHty  should  be  performed  by  a  clerk, 
whose  salary  would  be  one-half  or  one-third  that 
of  the  principal.  The  principal  should  be  a  cul- 
tured teacher  and  pedagogue,  not  only  a  business 
manager  and  telephone  attendant,  and  should 
actively  discharge  the  duties  of  teacher  in  the 
highest  classes  in  one  of  the  most  difficult  subjects. 

When  a  teacher  has  had  reasonable  experience 
in  the  class-room,  and  has  displayed  that  en- 
thusiastic zeal,  tact,  and  intelligence  without 
which  her  incumbency  tmder  any  conditions  be- 
comes a  most  objectionable  sinecure,  withdraw 
the  supervision  and  make  her  feel  that  she  alone 
is  responsible  in  that  room  for  results.  Confine 
the  insistence  upon  close  observance  of  method 
and  system  to  the  teachers  standing  in  need  of 
guidance,  whose  number,  after  the  proposed 
change  has  been  made,  will  become  smaller  and 
smaller.  Put  the  teacher  in  a  position  of  trust 
and  responsibility,  and  she  will  rise  to  the  dig- 
nity of  her  work  and  follow  with  reverence  her 
high  calHng.  Reduce  the  number  of  subjects 
to  the  indispensably  necessary,  and  the  teacher 
will  see  ahead  a  positive  goal,  knowing  that  she 
will  be  judged  according  to  the  gain  the  pupils 


HOW  TO  DO  BETTER  31 

have  made  in  the  power  to  do,  in  the  mastery  of 
fundamental  lessons,  rather  than  by  the  number 
she  promotes  to  the  next  grade.  As  an  incentive 
to  eager,  purposeful  work  the  prospect  of  an  in- 
crease in  salary  cannot  rival  the  promise  of  an 
opportunity  to  project  herself  in  an  individual 
way  in  the  life  of  her  pupils,  to  be  somebody, 
when  she  has  proven  her  capability  and  worth. 

**The  course  of  study  is  not  planned  with  a 
view  to  the  different  stages  of  mental  develop- 
ment.'* In  the  effort  to  teach  young  children 
what  ought  to  be  reserved  for  an  older  age,  sub- 
jects that  call  for  reasoning-power  and  judgment, 
and  therefore  belong  to  the  high  school  or  a  later 
period,  have  worked  their  way  downward,  step 
by  step,  imtil  they  permeate  even  the  primary 
grades,  often  occasioning  harmful  incongruities 
between  the  matter  itself  and  the  language  chosen 
to  convey  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  teaching  of  memory 
subjects,  such  as  the  languages,  is  long  deferred, 
even  to  high-school  years.  Here  again  the  rem- 
edy may  be  had  for  the  choosing.  Up  to  the 
age  of  ten  the  child  is  concerned  chiefly  with  re- 
cording impressions,  observing,  forming  habits, 
getting  himself  adjusted  to  a  world  quite  new  to 
him,  storing  up  information  that  in  later  years 
will  be  reviewed  in  the  light  of  reason.  It  is  the 
seed-time,  not  the  time  of  fruit-bearing.  To 
determine  what  branches  of  knowledge  and  in- 
struction are  of  least  worth  before  the  age  of  ten 


32     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

is  a  simple  matter,  and  miight  almost  be  left  to 
the  children.  It  would  result  in  the  elimination 
of  many  subjects  now  occupying  a  place  in  the 
schedule  to  the  children's  detriment. 

Nor  should  it  be  difficult  to  determine  what 
subjects  at  this  age  are  of  real  worth.  Yet  we 
are  again  confronted  by  what  seems  almost  un- 
attainable. Foreign  languages,  if  studied  at  all, 
should  be  begun  before  the  age  of  ten,  when  the 
memory  is  most  active,  the  auditory  and  vocal 
organs  most  responsive  to  the  formation  and  ac- 
quisition of  new  sounds.  Although  instruction 
in  foreign  languages  has  not  thus  far  been  con- 
sidered a  possibility  in  the  primary  pubhc  school, 
yet  the  way  for  such  instruction  may  also  in  our 
country  be  opened  in  a  time  not  remote.  In 
other  countries  such  instruction  has  been  given 
for  some  time.  The  idea  is  suggestive  of  the 
group  of  studies  fitting  the  period  when  the  mind 
of  the  child  is  soft  wax  to  receive  an  impression. 
This  brings  us  to  the  presentation  of  a  plan  for 
the  reconstruction  of  the  primary  school.  Perfec- 
tion is  not  claimed  for  it,  nor  completeness 
attempted.  Its  chief  merit  is  simplicity  and 
the  certainty  that  experimenting  along  these 
suggested  lines  carries  no  harm  to  the  little 
child. 

In  many  localities  the  plan  may  be  worked  out 
in  its  highest  form  without  additional  cost.  In 
others  the  additional  cost  will  perhaps  be  one- 
fourth  of  the  present  cost. 


HOW  TO   DO  BETTER  s3 

Since  the  parents  have  permitted  the  primary 
school  to  arrogate  to  itself  the  special  functions 
of  the  day  nursery,  the  curriculum  has  of  neces- 
sity adjusted  itself  to  that  purpose.  Forty  chil- 
dren are  assigned  to  a  teacher  whose  chief  duty 
is  to  fill  in  the  prescribed  hours  according  to  a 
fixed  schedule.  Children  are  in  the  class-room 
all  day,  not  because  they  stand  in  need  of  all-day 
instruction,  but  partly  because  a  teacher  is  sup- 
posed to  spend  so  many  hours  in  order  to  earn 
her  salary,  and  partly  because  five  or  six  hours  is 
the  usual  length  of  a  school-day. 

The  first  year  is  the  most  important  of  the 
child's  school  life,  one  important  task  being  the 
setting  of  right  habits,  and  another  the  preven- 
tion of  the  forming  of  wrong  ones.  He  must 
not  form  habits  now  that  need  to  be  broken 
later  on.  He  must  neither  become  an  idler  nor  a 
dawdler,  taking  all  day  for  the  work  he  should 
perform  in  half  an  hour. 

The  first  step  toward  reconstruction  is  to  divide 
the  first  grade  into  four  groups,  so  that  a  teacher 
will  have  not  more  than  ten  children  in  the  class- 
room at  one  time.  In  the  hour  or  two  of  instruc- 
tion given  to  each  group,  far  more  of  sound  worth 
will  be  accomplished  than  with  the  entire  grade 
all  day  together  in  a  room. 

The  advantages  of  a  small  group  for  a  short 
period  daily,  in  conjunction  with  the  liberty  of 
action  just  urged  for  the  teacher,  are  so  evident 
as  scarcely  to  require  enumeration.     It  amoimts 


34     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

to  doing  away  with  nearly  all  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  successful  primary  teaching.  Given 
a  large  room  with  not  more  than  ten  children: 


There  is  little  occasion  for  disorder. 

The  ventilation  is  easily  regulated. 

Individual  instruction  is  permitted. 

There  is  little  difficulty  in  the  way  of  good 
discipline. 

The  child  comes  to  school  eager  for  work, 
since  he  is  not  confined  all  day  on  a  hard 
bench. 

He  looks  forward  to  the  coming  of  a  new 
school-day,  going  home  with  reluctance. 

He  does  not  feel  the  friction  of  numbers 
peculiarly  irritating  to  a  young  child. 

Each  day  he  can  be  made  to  work  to  the 
limit  of  his  present  capacity. 

Progress  can  be  marked  by  the  teacher,  not 
in  the  number  of  pages  covered,  but  in  the 
children's  increasing  power  to  work. 

Every  minute  of  the  day  brings  happiness 
to  teacher  and  pupil  in  the  pure  joy  of  the 
•     conscious  doing  of  a  good  piece  of  work. 

This  fundamental  suggestion  of  having  ten 
pupils  at  a  time  for  one  and  one-half  hours  each, 
beginning  perhaps  at  eight-thirty  and  having 
but  one  section  in  the  afternoon,  offers  this  great 
advantage  as  well — that  the  class,  divided  at 
first  according  to  measurable  advancement  or 
previous  teaching  of  the  children,  as  those  who: 


HOW  TO  DO  BETTER  35 

Have  had  no  teaching. 
Know  the  alphabet. 
Can  spell  a  few  words. 
Have  memorized  some  poetry. 

makes  it  possible  to  give  teaching  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  the  entire  group.  This  initial  division, 
however,  does  not  mean  a  permanent  classifica- 
tion, as  there  is  a  more  striking  difference  among 
children  at  this  period  in  regard  to  their  ability 
to  learn  than  at  a  later  time.  This  arrangement 
permits  the  exceptionally  quick  child  to  pass 
from  one  division  to  another,  perhaps  through  the 
four  steps  in  a  single  year,  without  the  necessity 
of  changing  teachers.  The  child  of  seven  who 
has  had  no  home  instruction  and  is  placed  in  the 
eight-thirty  division  until  the  alphabet  is  mas- 
tered will  do  this  quickly  and  move  ahead  through 
the  classes  to  the  afternoon  division,  which  we 
will  consider  the  most  advanced,  while  some  of 
the  afternoon  members  have  earned  promotion 
to  a  division  of  the  second  grade. 

Now,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  school 
is  regarded  as  a  good  place  to  send  small  children 
when  their  parents  would  get  them  out  of  the  way, 
little  more  would  have  to  be  said  of  this  general 
plan  than  that  the  children  should  go  home  when 
the  short  session  is  ended.  This  can  be  done  in 
cases  where  parents  are  willing  to  care  for  their 
children  the  rest  of  the  day.  This  part  of  the 
solution  is  not  only  a  local  but  an  individual  prob- 


36     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

lem.  It  must  be  dealt  with  by  each  community 
according  to  prevailing  local  circumstances.  If 
the  parents  will  not  or  cannot  take  care  of  the 
children  after  the  period  of  instruction  they 
must  be  kept  in  charge  by  the  school,  but  not 
shut  up  in  a  close  room,  crowded  into  unnatural 
positions  in  benches,  kept  inactive  for  long  hours. 
There  must  be  playground  and  playrooms  in 
charge  of  a  sensible,  matronly  caretaker  to  see 
that  the  children  do  not  get  hurt.  If  large  num- 
bers are  to  be  together  there  must  be  experienced 
supervision,  but  this  does  not  necessarily  call  for 
the  high-priced  expert.  The  main  point  is  that 
instead  of  pupils  and  teachers  exhausting  each 
other  in  the  long  hours  under  wrong  conditions 
in  the  class-room,  the  little  ones  should  be  safely 
looked  after  outdoors  or  amid  proper  surround- 
ings. 

The  National  Playground  Association  could  do 
no  better  work  than  in  planning  with  various 
school  systems  this  application  of  the  children's 
time. 

No  hard  and  fast  rules  regarding  exceptions  or 
modifications  of  this  plan  are  desirable  beyond 
the  insistence  that  the  school  must  adjust  itself 
to  the  community  and  individual  needs — that 
the  stimulus  to  change  and  betterment  come  from 
a  knowledge  of  what  is  good  for  the  children  in 
that  identical  school  and  locality  rather  than 
from  what  may  have  been  said  to  be  the  latest 
and  most  approved  plan  of  the  system. 


HOW  TO   DO  BETTER  37 

First-grade  children  in  the  short  session  just 
advocated  should  make  unmistakable  progress 
during  the  year.  In  what  this  should  consist  will 
be  pointed  out  in  other  chapters,  but  our  pres- 
ent concern  is  to  devise  ways  of  making  possible 
the  individual  teaching  advocated  in  this  book. 
Children  taught  for  a  year  in  groups  of  ten  may, 
if  necessary,  be  in  groups  of  fifteen  during  the 
second  and  third  years,  spending  two  hours  at 
hard  work  in  the  school-room.  For  the  well- 
trained  children  between^nine  and  ten,  three-hour 
sessions,  twenty  in  a  group,  will  enable  a  teacher 
to  do  good  work,  and  to  give  them  all  the  instruc- 
tion from  books  profitable  to  them  at  this  age. 

This  plan  has  been  carried  out  in  both  public 
and  private  schools  with  entire  success.  A  county 
superintendent,  in  addressing  the  patrons  of  such 
a  school  in  northern  New  Jersey,  said:  **Yes, 
your  school  does  cost  you  more  money  than  the 
ordinary  school,  but  more  is  done  for  the  chil- 
dren, and  anything  that  represents  a  gain  to  the 
immortal  soul  cannot  be  measured  in  dollars 
and  cents.*'  This  school  did  cost  more  money 
for  the  year  191 2-13 ;  but  there  were  no  repeaters, 
no  neglected  fringe  to  the  class,  no  sick  or  nervous 
or  discouraged  children,  but  children  none  of 
whom  disliked  school,  no  cases  of  avoidable  ab- 
sence, no  truancy.  The  work  was  accomplished 
each  day  in  a  reasonable  length  of  time,  while 
advancement  was  far  more  rapid  than  under  or- 
dinary conditions. 


38     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

In  the  public  schools  of  Mt.  Lebanon,  Penn., 
the  first  and  second  grades  have  been  dismissed 
the  last  two  years  at  noon,  and  their  teachers  are 
required  to  help  in  the  teaching  of  higher  grades 
during  the  afternoon,  so  as  to  provide  a  certain 
amount  of  individual  instruction. 

The  slogan  of  our  schoolmen  in  discussing  the 
reorganization  of  the  schools  is,  *' Elimination  of 
non-essentials  and  greater  flexibility  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  schools/'  They  seem  to  think  that 
they  have  done  their  part  by  talking,  and  except 
in  rare  and  isolated  cases  nothing  is  done. 

Now  does  it  not  become  the  duty  of  mothers, 
until  such  time  as  the  schools  provide  a  rational 
scheme  of  instruction,  to  give  their  little  children 
such  teaching  at  home  as  by  general  consent 
should  be  given,  until  the  schools  follow  this 
example  and  mend  their  ways?  Mothers  can  do 
it  better  than  the  best  teachers. 


IV 

HOME    TEACHING,    OR    THE    NEIGHBORING    SCHOOL 

GREAT  pedagogues  like  Comenius,  Spencer, 
and  Froebel,  great  writers  on  education  like 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  and  Jean  Paul  Richter, 
looked  on  pedagogy  as  an  art.  Their  ambitious 
followers  of  this  generation  have  tried  to  turn  it 
into  an  exact  science,  with  ever  so  many  strag- 
gling offshoots  like  child-pyschology,  etc.  As  if 
a  child's  mind  and  soul  could  be  vivisected  like 
a  poor  dumb  guinea-pig.  The  simplest  difficulties 
in  a  child's  education  have  been  puffed  up  into 
so-called  tremendous  problems,  so  that  the  poor 
mothers,  whose  instinct  and  intuition  alone  can 
overcome  these  difficulties,  have  abandoned  their 
offspring  to  the  experiments  of  the  professional 
pedagogue.  Let  the  mothers  take  heart  and  re- 
claim their  sacred  privilege  and  duty  to  be  the 
first  and  most  potent  factor  in  their  children's 
education. 

The  pressing  need  for  the  reconstruction  of  the 

public-school  system  is  intensified  in  the  case  of 

the  primary  grades.     It  is  here  that  we  earnestly 

plead  for  the  mother's  active  help.     All  true  re- 

4 


40     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

forms  have  begun  at  the  bottom,  not  the  top. 
The  primary  school  is  not  only  the  logical  place, 
but  also  the  most  convenient,  for  such  a  begin- 
ning. Moreover,  it  is  the  school  through  which 
the  one  hundred  per  cent,  must  go,  the  poor 
stragglers  dropping  out  in  ever-increasing  num- 
bers with  each  higher  grade.  But  there  are  still 
weightier  reasons  which  should  compel  us  to 
immediate  action.  In  the  sensitive  early  year^ 
of  childhood  the  complexity,  the  overcrowding, 
the  deadening  uniformity  of  a  standardized 
system  overwhelm  and  oppress.  The  Creator 
gave  us  our  individuaUty  for  a  purpose.  To 
force  all  into  the  same  mold  is  to  thwart  His 
purpose  and  to  lessen  the  efficiency  of  our  work 
in  the  world.  In  preferring  our  plea  for  the  re- 
construction of  the  entire  system  emphasis  has 
been  placed  upon  the  needs  of  the  lower  grades, 
and  a  provisional  plan,  based  upon  the  utmost 
simpUcity  of  procedure,  has  been  outlined.  The 
conscientious  mother  of  young  children  is  con- 
fronted with  these  alternatives:  either  to  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  reform  the  elementary  school  or 
else  to  teach  her  children  at  home  until  such  a 
time  as  they  will  be  mentally  and  morally  strength- 
ened to  resist  the  evil  effects  of  herding,  of  mass 
teaching,  and  of  a  complex  plan  of  instruction. 
While  difficult  to  solve  the  problem  of  the 
multitude,  the  mother  can,  if  she  will,  solve  the 
problem  of  her  own  child.  Quite  different,  indeed, 
is  her  problem  from  the  teacher's.    The  latter, 


HOME  TEACHING  41 

entering  the  class-room,  says  to  herself:  *'What 
are  my  orders?  How  have  I  to  deal  with  this 
grade  ?  What  does  the  principal  want  me  to  do  ? 
Does  the  superintendent  approve  of  my  methods  ? 
Have  the  children  mastered  last  year's  work? 
Shall  I  be  able  to  get  them  promoted  into  the 
next  grade?" 

This  leads  us  to  ask:  Why  do  people  send  little 
children  to  school?  Why  need  there  be  such  a 
thing  as  a  rigidly  prescribed  course  for  children 
from  five  to  eight  or  ten  years  old,  any  more  than 
for  children  two  years  old?  The  chief  reasons 
given  by  parents  for  sending  young  children  to 
school  are:  first,  sad  to  say,  to  get  them  out  of 
the  way;   second,  to  give  them  an  education. 

*'To  get  the  children  out  of  the  way'*  is  beyond 
question  a  legitimate  excuse  for  the  mother  who 
must  toil  in  order  to  feed  and  clothe  her  children ; 
but  the  mother  who  looks  upon  the  school  and 
the  kindergarten  as  an  avenue  to  six  hours'  daily 
freedom  from  responsibility  would  do  well  to 
consider  the  warning:  **Take  heed  that  ye  de- 
spise not  one  of  these  little  ones." 

When  Froebel  founded  his  first  kindergarten 
he  knew  very  well  that  the  foundation  of  the 
highest  type  of  education  can  best  be  given  by 
the  mother  at  home.  But,  feeling  in  his  big 
heart  a  deep  sympathy  for  the  children  whose 
mothers  were  incapable  and  whose  homes  were 
unsuitable  to  give  that  education,  he  founded  his 
kindergarten  as  a  substitute;  which  fact  he  him- 


42     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

self  emphasizes  when  he  says:  ** Kindergartens 
are  the  most  beautiful  substitute  for  genuine 
family  life."  Thus  it  is  manifest  that  his  kinder- 
garten was  intended  for  poor  children  to  whom 
are  denied  genuine  family  Hfe,  genuine  mother's 
love,  the  genuine,  strong,  and  safe  corrective  of 
a  conscientious  father's  hand  and  mind.  Is  there, ' 
then,  in  our  country  no  such  genuine  family  life 
that  we  must  turn,  instead,  to  a  substituted  and 
misapplied  kindergarten  system?  Is  it  not  to 
be  deplored  that  American  mothers  clamor  for 
public  kindergartens  to  relieve  them  of  their  re- 
sponsibilities, and  to  so  unload  upon  the  state 
as  a  worrying  burden  what  ought  to  be  a  sacred 
trust?  In  no  other  country  are  there  relatively 
and  absolutely  so  many  kindergartens  as  in  the 
United  States. 

**To  give  him  an  education."  To  do  so  is 
the  bounden  duty  of  all  good  parents.  And  it 
is  the  state's  bounden  duty  to  help.  But  give 
him  that  kind  of  education  for  which  he  is  fit 
and  which  fits  him  for  his  walk  in  life.  Yes,  you 
want  yoiir  small  child  to  master  the  essentials 
of  knowledge-getting.  Very  well;  what  do  you 
do  to  accomplish  this  laudable  object?  You  re- 
sort to  the  exceedingly  wise  and  practical  plan 
of  surrendering  him  to  the  school,  to  be  placed 
in  charge  of  an  overworked,  underpaid  woman 
with  forty  children  in  her  care,  to  learn  in  five  or 
six  hours  each  day  the  reading,  spelling,  writing, 
and  arithmetic  which  his  mother  could  better 


HOME  TEACHING  43 

teach  him  at  home  in  a  small  fraction  of  that 
time !  Is  this  a  promising  beginning  of  an  educa- 
tion? And  when  the  experiment  fails  are  you 
justified  in  placing  the  blame  upon  the  school? 

Why  thrust  the  sensitive  little  child  into  the 
complexities  of  a  modem  school  ?  Why  make  him 
conform  to  the  artificial  life  and  environment 
which  is  inseparable  from  the  systematic  manipu- 
lation of  forty  individuals  receiving  simultaneous 
instruction  according  to  a  predetermined  and  in- 
flexible schedule?  The  power  of  logical  thinking 
and  the  habit  of  careful  work  could  no  more  be 
cultivated  under  such  conditions  than  by  the 
punctual  daily  attendance  at  a  three-ring  circus. 
The  safe  and  fitting  place  for  a  little  child  is  at 
home  under  the  guidance  and  with  the  teaching 
of  father  and  mother.  Until  the  age  of  ten  or 
thereabouts  every  child  having  a  good  home 
should  remain  in  that  home.  It  is  the  best  place 
for  teaching  a  child  during  the  first  ten  years  of 
his  life.  The  training  he  receives  from  God- 
fearing parents  will  do  more  for  his  future  success 
than  will  the  best  school  in  the  land;  and  I  would 
maintain  this  even  if  his  training  did  not  include 
the  study  of  books. 

Do  not  look  upon  the  school  as  the  legitimate 
agent  of  education  for  your  child.  Send  him 
there  by  all  means,  if  you  cannot  possibly  teach 
him  yourself  to  read  and  cipher.  But  remember 
that  a  school  is  at  best  an  artificial  institution, 
the  outgrowth  of  the  parents*  proneness  to  rele- 


44     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

gate  their  highest  duty  to  paid  substitutes.  The 
complicated  machinery  of  the  fine,  large  school 
causes  you  to  wonder  if  you  cotild  possibly  do 
anything  as  well  as  it  is  done  there.  But  remem- 
ber again  that  this  grand  scale  of  operations  has 
been  thought  out  for  administrative  purposes,  not 
because  a  single  educator  believed  children  to  be 
the  gainers  by  being  corralled  into  vast  herds  and 
then  driven  to  a  common  goal.  Just  as  the 
family  is  the  only  secure  basis  of  the  state,  so  is 
it  the  only  safe  basis  of  true  education.  If  the 
mother  will  consider  the  many  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  successful  teaching  in  a  large  school  and 
will  then  set  against  these  in  the  balance  the 
positive  and  unquestionable  advantages  of  home 
instruction  to  the  child  she  will  be  disposed  to 
wonder  why  any  child  having  a  good  home  is 
sent  to  school  before  the  age  of  ten.  In  a  happy- 
go-lucky  way  we  have  become  accustomed  to 
think  of  school  and  study  as  something  to  which 
the  child  must  inevitably  proceed  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment.  In  the  same  measure  we  have 
lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  school  is  burdened 
with  parental  responsibility  because  home  train- 
ing in  our  day  is  grossly  neglected.  Susanna 
Wesley  taught  her  children  at  home,  for  twenty 
years  carrying  on  this  instruction  daily,  **not  so 
much,"  she  said,  *'to  train  their  minds  as  to  save 
their  souls.'* 

For  a  striking  example  of  the  effectiveness  of 
home  teaching  turn  to  that  wonderful  people,  the 


HOME  TEACHING  45 

Jews,  who  in  far-off  times  had  no  public  education- 
al system,  but  whose  instruction  was  given  at 
home  by  the  parents.  Lessons  in  patriotism  and 
religion,  love  for  the  heroes  of  its  history,  en- 
thusiasm for  fellow-religionists,  were  given  side 
by  side  with  instruction  from  books.  Here  the 
parents  projected  their  personality  into  the  lives 
of  their  children.  It  is  not  strange  that  there  is 
no  family  cohesion  where  the  divinely  ordained 
teachers  have  thrown  aside  their  duty  and  farmed 
their  children  out  to  the  school. 

However,  many  a  mother  would  gladly  teach 
her  children,  but  she  distrusts  her  own  scholar- 
ship and  teaching  -  ability.  She  is  rusty!  She 
herself  could  not  pass  the  examinations!  They 
teach  so  differently  nowadays! 

The  mother  need  not  distrust  her  own  powers 
nor  the  effectiveness  of  homely  methods.  She 
need  not  fear  narrowness;  it  is  often  a  blessed 
symptom  of  strength  and  intensity;  it  cuts  deep 
instead  of  merely  scratching  the  surface.  In- 
stead of  worrying  about  methods  let  her  gather 
up  her  courage  and  go  ahead  with  this  work, 
doing  whatever  seems  necessary  at  the  time,  tak- 
ing for  guidance  her  own  common  sense  and  life 
experience,  indifferent  as  to  what  particular  thing 
the  children  may  know,  but  sensitive  as  to  what 
they  are  and  can  do.  She  will  be  rewarded  by 
finding  that  her  boys  and  girls  at  ten  will  know 
how  to  study,  how  to  use  a  book,  how  to  meet 
and  overcome  difficulties. 


46     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Perhaps  you  mothers  say:  That  is  all  very  fine, 
but  we  have  no  time  to  teach  our  children.  Sure- 
ly you  can  spare  for  the  actual  teaching  one-half 
hour,  and  later  one  hour,  each  day,  and  that  is 
sufficient.  A  child  who  is  being  taught  all  the 
time  has  no  time  to  learn.  It  is  you  who  know 
the  child's  mind  and  body.  You  know  his  pros- 
pects, needs,  and  possibilities.  You  know  the  im- 
portance of  sincere  living — of  work  done  thorough- 
ly and  well.  Above  all,  you  will  know  when  to 
let  the  child  alone  to  work  out  its  own  salvation. 

Moreover,  whatever  handicaps,  real  or  imagi- 
nary, under  which  the  mother  teacher  labors, 
will  be  more  than  offset  by  the  overwhelming 
advantages  of  the  simpler  curriculum  of  her  teach- 
ing, in  which  a  pupil  learns  to  do  a  few  things 
well  instead  of  many  things  poorly.  Lincoln's 
mother,  uneducated,  taught  her  boy  so  effectively 
in  the  wilderness  as  to  attain  the  purpose  of  the 
very  best  and  highest  teaching — which  is  to 
make  a  school  unnecessary.  Do  you  ask  what 
she  taught  him?  The  alphabet,  to  spell,  to  mem- 
orize passages  from  the  Bible,  and  then  he  learned 
to  read  the  Bible.  So  well,  indeed,  did  she  ful- 
fil her  duty  as  the  educator  of  her  child  that  a  short 
time  ago  the  Chancellor  of  Oxford  University  de- 
clared to  the  scholars  of  Great  Britain  that  among 
the  masters  of  English  eloquence  there  was  not 
one  the  equal  of  Lincoln,  the  American.  Such 
men  as  Franklin,  Lincoln,  Greeley,  and  many 
others  who  have  acquired  a  high  education  with- 


HOME  TEACHING  47 

out  so-called  educational  advantages  are  gener- 
ally supposed  to  owe  their  success  to  extraordinary 
powers  of  intellect.  This  in  some  measure  may 
be  correct.  But  it  may  be  safely  asstimed  that, 
driven  by  necessity,  they  studied  only  the  subjects 
for  which  they  were  fit,  and  wasted  no  time  on 
subjects  for  which  they  had  neither  inclination 
nor  talent,  and  which,  therefore,  would  have  been 
useless  to  them. 

The  mother  at  work  in  her  home  school  will 
become  clever  as  she  never  was  clever  before; 
wiser  than  she  could  ever  be  for  her  sole  self; 
looking  so  clearly  into  the  future  that  you  almost 
credit  her  with  the  gift  of  prophecy.  She  learns 
by  teaching.  Just  as  no  amount  of  study  or 
learning  or  experience  can  make  an  educator 
out  of  a  mere  instructor,  so  the  mother's  instinct, 
the  mother's  oneness  with  her  child,  the  mother's 
patient  and  understanding  love  as  she  watches 
his  growth  and  development  will  guide  her  to 
find  the  right  way  to  take  her  all-important  part 
in  the  education  of  her  child.  She  needs  no  rigid 
system  for  teaching  her  children.  She  is  not 
dealing  with  the  theoretical  child,  but  with  the 
child  as  he  really  is. 

Look  at  the  mother  hen  with  her  brood.  They 
obey  instantly  her  call  and  her  command.  Let 
the  foremost  educationist  of  the  world  attempt 
to  teach  those  little  chicks.  He  meets  with  in- 
stant and  signal  defeat,  and  is  just  as  Hkely  to 
fail  in  his  most  persevering  attempt  to  teach  the 


48     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

little  children  of  other  people.  The  small  child 
accepts  its  mother's  teaching  without  question, 
even  when  a  patient  and  painstaking  father's 
instruction  falls  on  deaf  ears. 

Nor  need  the  mother  attempt  to  teach  all  the 
subjects  prescribed  in  the  schools.  It  is  not  the 
acquisition,  but  the  power  of  acquiring,  that 
counts.  The  directness,  the  simplicity,  the  ab- 
sence of  showy  method  in  home  teaching  help 
realize  the  dream  of  the  educator — that  to  sub- 
ordinate the  curriculum  to  the  good  of  the  in- 
dividual is  the  sound  basis  of  education.  For, 
while  simpUcity  should  be  the  watchword  through- 
out the  entire  school  course,  the  uttermost  sim- 
plicity is  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  effective 
teaching  of  little  children,  as  will  be  attested  by 
all  who  make  an  intelligent  study  of  the  child 
mind. 

The  young  mind  at  first  deals  only  with  un- 
connected facts  and  single  happenings.  Every- 
thing is  individual,  standing  by  itself.  By  and 
by  it  begins  combining  things,  seeing  how  two 
things  join,  discovering  whereby  remote  and  con- 
trary things  cohere,  finding  the  relation  of  flower 
and  stem.  Here,  then,  is  the  first  step  toward 
complexity.  Where  at  first  the  tree  extended  to 
the  ground  it  now  has  roots  running  underground. 
Then  comes  the  relationships  of  threes,  and  so 
on,  in  course  of  time,  to  the  thousands.  To  crowd 
the  young  mind  at  this  time  with  facts,  to  fill  it 
with  unsought  information,   is  to  preclude  the 


HOME  TEACHING  49 

natural  evolution  of  the  mental  faculties  by  suf- 
focating thought.  For  instance,  the  fact  of  the 
earth  being  round  is  an  idea  that  cannot  assume 
its  full  magnitude  when  first  presented,  but  must 
have  room  to  broaden  and  expand.  Days  and 
weeks  and  months  are  too  short  a  time  for  the 
growing  of  this  one  idea.  Yes,  there  is  something 
on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain,  and  the  earth 
stretches  away  from  here  to  the  everlasting  be- 
yond, and  it  doesn^t  just  go  on  and  on,  but  it 
doubles  around  until  at  last  it  comes  back  to  this 
same  place.  And  then  that  whole  marvelous 
journey  must  be  lived  over  again.  There  are 
seas  to  be  crossed,  and  mountains  to  be  climbed, 
and  forests  and  animals  and  people  and  more 
mountains.  A  careful  consideration  of  what  a 
single  notion  such  as  this  must  mean  to  the  little 
child  arouses  one  to  a  sense  of  the  danger  attend- 
ing the  effort  to  teach  more  at  one  time  than  the 
child  is  ready  to  assimilate.  He  will  ask  for  more 
information  the  moment  he  is  ready  for  it.  To 
teach  the  child  all  that  is  called  for  in  the  cur- 
riculum and  claim  that  we  are  educating  him  is 
about  as  sensible  as  preparing  a  prize-fighter  for 
the  ring  by  stuffing  him  with  all  he  can  eat  for 
a  month  beforehand. 

The  child  unspoiled  by  over-instruction  is  as 
eager  to  learn  as  he  is  eager  to  play.  He  hungers 
and  thirsts  for  knowledge.  His  spirit  unfolds 
itself  in  questions.  If  we  but  note  the  scope  of 
these  questions  we  realize  the  absurdity  of  *' fitting 


50     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

things  to  his  understanding.'*  Here  is  a  soul 
hungering  for  its  proper  food.  He  wants  to  know 
the  biggest  things  in  creation.  Who  is  really 
equal,  who  can  be  equal,  to  answering  the  ques- 
tions of  a  little  child?  Instead  of  planning  set 
lessons  that  you  think  suited  to  his  understand- 
ing, if  you  could  only  3deld  wisely  and  let  your- 
self follow  the  lead  of  the  child,  teaching  him 
what  he  will  insist  upon  knowing,  you  would  want 
no  other  pedagogy.  "A  little  child  shall  lead 
them.**  This  can  truly  apply  to  the  intellectual 
training  of  the  child.  It  can  well  be  the  mother's 
guide  in  choosing  what  is  to  be  taught,  and  when. 
Just  as  the  tendrils  of  the  vine  reach  out  for  some- 
thing solid,  so  the  growing  mind  of  the  child  is 
putting  forth  questions,  seeking  something  sure 
to  which  it  may  cling.  Its  questions  are  parts  of 
an  uncompleted  whole  in  his  experience.  They 
and  their  satisfying  answers  are  the  warp  and 
woof  of  its  intellectual  growth.  The  time  to  teach 
him  a  thing  is  the  moment  he  shows  you  his  mind 
is  ready  for  that  thing.  Here  you  have  the 
psychological  moment  talked  about  so  much, 
but  of  which  we  cannot  take  advantage  in  the 
graded  school. 

All  of  childhood  is  a  schooling,  and  the  child 
in  his  first  six  years  learns  relatively  more  than 
he  will  learn  hereafter  in  his  entire  school  course. 
Is  not  the  relative  distance  between  the  infant 
and  the  child  of  six  greater  than  the  relative  dis- 
tance between  the  latter  and  the  university  grad- 


HOME  TEACHING  51 

uate?  The  training  of  the  body  conies  before  the 
training  of  the  mind,  as  every  mother  realizes, 
and  the  formation  of  right  habits  precedes  in 
time  and  importance  instruction  from  books. 
Indeed,  all  artificial  lessons,  all  work  with  books, 
may  be  long  delayed,  months  and  years  being 
spent  in  getting  ready  for  their  use.  The  time 
to  begin  the  study  of  books  will  vary  so  much 
with  the  individual  that  no  hard  and  fast  general 
law  can  be  given.  In  later  chapters  are  given 
unpretentious  methods  of  teaching  various  sub- 
jects, but  they  are  only  intended  to  be  suggestive. 
The  entire  plan  of  work  given  in  this  book  is 
based  upon  the  assimiption  that  your  five-year- 
old  is  being  trained  in  habits  of  orderliness  and 
regularity,  helpfulness  and  unquestioning  obedi- 
ence. These  are  plain,  true  aims  of  education, 
the  ones  most  often  overlooked.  Such  training 
as  this  is  the  highest  kind  of  discipline,  forming 
habits  of  immeasurable  worth.  To  give  this  kind 
of  training  the  earnest  mother  cannot  doubt  her 
ability.  Even  if  difficult  in  the  beginning,  its 
value  is  supreme  and  makes  easy  and  delightful 
the  later  task  of  educating  the  child. 

It  may  appear  unfair  to  propose  an  added  re- 
sponsibility in  the  case  of  the  mother  who  must 
do  her  housework  without  help  or  with  but  one 
servant,  but  in  reality  such  conditions  are  most 
favorable  to  the  education  of  the  child. 

The  best  teaching  I  ever  saw  in  my  life  was  done 
by  the  busy  mother  of  nine  children,  who  taught 


52     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

her  little  ones  as  she  worked  about  the  house.    She 
would  give  the  little  girl  a  handful  of  beans  to 
count,  then  to  find  half  of  them.     Perhaps  the 
child  would  divide  the  beans  equally  among  her 
family  of  clothes-pin  dolls  and  see  how  many  fell 
to  the  share  of  each.     The  recitation  took  place 
during  the  daily  combing  of  the  child's  tangled 
curls.     Fortunately  for  this  small  girl,  she  lived 
far  back  in  the  wilderness,  miles  from  a  school- 
house,  and  after  learning  to  read  and  getting  the 
elements  of  arithmetic,  she  pursued  the  study  of 
mathematics  at  home.     Sometimes  she  asked  her 
mother  for  aid,  and  it  came  in  this  form :  "I  shall 
certainly  help  you  if  you  want  me  to,  but  remem- 
ber that  every  time  you  get  a  hard  example  by 
your  own  effort  it  is  worth  twenty  that  I  help 
you  wdth.'*     The  child  would  turn  to  her  book 
with  renewed  courage  and  struggle  on  at  the 
stubborn  problem.     Again  would  she  appeal  for 
help,  and  this  time  it  would  be:   *'Read  the  first 
part  of  the  problem  carefully  until  you  are  sure 
you  understand  it.     You  can  get  the  meaning  of 
the  first  sentence?'*    Yes,  the  child  could.    *'  Now 
study  the  next  part  of  it — no  more — until  you  know 
what  that  means.     Then  see  if  these  two  sentences 
are  clear  to  you."     Over  and  over  the  small  child 
would  study  the  problem  in  this  way,  whether 
it  was  arithmetic  or  algebra.     She  actually  mas- 
tered these  subjects  with  the  aid  of  her  mother, 
who  had  never  opened  an  algebra  in  her  life,  but 
who  did  know  how  a  child  should  study. 


HOME  TEACHING  53 

Teach  these  essentials:  How  to  work;  that 
*'  Heaven  is  not  reached  at  a  single  bound  " ;  that 
habits  early  formed  determine  character  and 
destiny;  that  ** genius  is  an  infinite  capacity  for 
taking  pains*';  that  ''He  that  ruleth  his  own 
spirit  is  greater  than  he  that  taketh  a  city  " ;  that 
to-morrow  will  soon  be  yesterday;  that  we  must 
make  our  opportunities,  not  wait  for  them;  that 
all  work  is  ennobling,  idleness  unfruitful,  degrad- 
ing, abhorrent  to  God  and  man. 

At  what  age,  then,  should  these  essentials  be 
acquired?  They  should  unquestionably  be  mas- 
tered before  the  age  of  ten.  The  right  foundation 
cannot  be  more  dispensed  with  in  an  education 
than  in  a  structure  of  brick  and  stone.  The 
latter  is  but  temporal,  while  in  the  former  we  are 
building  for  eternity.  DiscipUne  of  mind  and 
character  is  a  first  object;  all  else  is  secondary 
to  character-building.  In  these  very  early  years 
is  laid  the  foundation  of  character;  if  the  plan 
be  faulty,  the  workmen  unskilled,  the  material 
second  rate,  then  all  later  acquisitions  of  knowl- 
edge based  upon  this  are  building  for  naught. 
We  have  a  house  built  upon  sand. 

Our  aim  from  beginning  to  end  shall  be  power- 
getting,  making  each  year  really  represent  a 
year's  preparation  for  life,  instead  of  being  merely 
a  preparation  for  the  succeeding  grade.  To  this 
end  we  shall  eliminate  unnecessary  and  worthless 
branches  by  applying  to  every  subject,  and  to 
each  detail  of  every  subject,  the  test: 


54     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Is  this  worth  learning? 
Does  this  particular  child  need  it? 
Is  this  the  time  to  teach  it? 
Is  it  something  he  will  be  able  to  master 
of  his  own  accord  later  on? 


Then  let  the  teacher  apply  to  her  own  work  the 
further  test:  Let  me  teach  this  day  as  if  it 
were  the  last  day  to  be  vouchsafed  me  for  my 
work. 

The  child  is  to  acquire  interest  and  ambition, 
the  desire  to  learn,  habits  of  industry  and  per- 
severance. I  do  not  think  we  should  try  to  make 
things  too  easy  for  stout  boys  and  girls,  nor  have 
them  learn  things  with  the  least  possible  exertion. 
We  must  convince  them  that  nothing  worth 
while  has  ever  been  done  except  by  persistent, 
unremitting  effort. 

We  shall  endeavor  to  bring  the  current  of  edu- 
cation within  narrow  bounds,  to  make  it  deep 
and  strong  and  swift-flowing,  instead  of  dis- 
sipating its  power  and  destroying  its  usefulness 
by  spreading  it  over  vast  areas. 

What  becomes  of  the  little  child  while  the 
mother  is  doing  her  housework?  The  child  will 
be  taught  and  made  to  help,  and  so  will  be  getting 
the  best  of  teaching.  At  ten  years  of  age  every 
boy  and  girl  should  be  able  to  help  intelligently 
with  every  task  about  the  house,  garden,  and 
farm.  In  the  beginning  let  him  help  in  the  kitchen 
drying  the  knives  and  forks,  placing  the  dishes 


HOME  TEACHING  55 

carefully  away.  With  a  tiny  broom  he  can  sweep 
the  kitchen.  He  can  help  with  the  bed-making. 
With  a  cloth  he  can  carefully  dust  pieces  of  fur- 
niture, the  chairs,  the  sewing-machine.  Thus, 
safe  under  his  mother's  eye,  happy  in  his  activity, 
asking  questions,  learning  good  and  helpful  les- 
sons, the  day  passes.  Something  of  a  hindrance 
to  his  mother,  perhaps,  but  a  loving  hindrance; 
and  becoming  less  of  a  hindrance  as  he  learns  to 
be  more  and  more  useful.  He  takes  your  time 
and  attention.  But  is  not  the  welfare  of  a  hu- 
man soul  more  important  than  the  matter  of  a 
dessert  for  dinner? 

Another  ready  solution  of  the  problem  of  pri- 
mary instruction  is  the  neighborhood  school.  In 
nearly  every  community  is  some  mother,  perhaps 
herself  a  former  teacher,  who  can  help  her  less 
experienced  neighbors  by  gathering  their  little 
ones  in  with  her  own  children  and  thus  conducting 
a  school  of  individual  instruction. 

Not  only  does  such  a  school  meet  the  real  needs 
of  its  own  pupils,  especially  such  as  have  no  play- 
mates at  home,  but  it  affords  a  point  of  leverage 
for  the  reform  of  the  public  school.  For  we 
**must  cry  aloud  and  spare  not."  Said  a  well- 
known  school-director  in  whose  home  such  a 
neighborhood  school  has  been  carried  on:  **If 
it  were  a  matter  of  instructing  my  own  children 
exclusively,  I  would  not  send  them  to  any  other 
school;    but  what  about  those  with  whom  my 

children  will  associate  and  whom  they  will  marry 
5 


56     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

when  they  grow  up?  I  must  better  their  condi- 
tions, which  means  I  must  wrestle  with  the  public- 
school  problem;  hence  my  determination  to  work 
for  the  reform  of  the  public  school." 

Such  a  neighborhood  school  as  I  am  advocating 
should  be  small,  consisting  of  from  six  to  ten 
pupils,  with  a  course  of  study  and  a  school-day 
planned  to  fit  the  needs  of  these  children.  The 
teacher  will  not  concern  herself  with  the  manner 
in  which  some  one  else  would  carry  on  a  school. 
She  is  unhampered  by  tradition,  or  system,  or 
supervision.  She  is  bound  by  no  rules  save  those 
of  common  sense;  she  has  only  to  consider  her 
duty  to  God  and  the  parents. 

She  pins  her  faith  to  simple,  honest,  every- 
day work.  She  will  insist  upon  a  day's  work 
that  is  just  a  little  better,  higher,  more  complete 
than  that  of  the  day  before.  A  piece  of  work  is 
well  done  or  it  is  not  well  done.  Instead  of  hear- 
ing recitations  she  will  spend  the  time  in  direct- 
ing the  children's  work.  She  will  not  waste  time 
on  averages  or  examinations. 

Such  a  school  as  this,  carried  on  for  the  love  of 
the  work  by  a  competent,  earnest  teacher  with 
pupils  who  have  never  known  artificial  stimuli 
to  interest,  is  worth  much  in  this  age  of  super- 
ficiality. Here  every  child  will  be  taught  to  work 
to  the  best  advantage  according  to  the  inherent 
capacity  of  each,  and  neither  excuse  nor  substi- 
tute wiU  be  accepted  for  an  honest  day's  work. 
They  will  be  taught  how  to  study.     They  will  be 


HOME  TEACHING  57 

made  to  realize  the  value  of  time.  Energy  will 
be  devoted  to  mind-training  instead  of  mind- 
cramming.  The  mere  acquisition  of  knowledge  is 
a  minor  concern. 

The  whole  environment  will  be  conducive  to 
study.  There  is  an  atmosphere  of  work.  When 
the  teacher  is  left  free  to  exercise  her  faculties 
in  the  planning  of  work  you  may  hope  for  in- 
spiration to  flow  outward  to  the  children.  The 
careful  employment  of  any  faculty  means  the  in- 
tensifying and  developing  of  that  faculty  to  the 
worker. 

As  a  last  word  let  me  say,  Keep  your  child  out 
of  bad  company,  at  home  and  at  school.  *'He 
that  toucheth  pitch  will  be  defiled.'*  The  home 
is  responsible  for  the  moral  and  religious  training 
of  the  child.  Religious  education  in  the  schools 
is  and  ever  will  be  a  vexing  question;  it  must 
make  no  distinction;  it  must  be  only  such  teach- 
ing as  is  embodied  in  the  cardinal  virtues,  in 
Pope's  "Universal  Prayer,"  in  ''Lead,  Edndly 
Light,"  and  must  not  in  any  sense  be  sectarian, 
for  the  experience  of  ages  in  many  lands  has 
shown  that  the  results  of  mixing  sectarian  with 
general  education  have  been  as  disastrous  as 
those  of  combining  religion  and  politics.  Vol- 
taire, Gibbon,  and  IngersoU  were  all  ''religiously 
educated,"  and  lived  to  be  the  enemies  of  all 
religion.  On  the  other  hand,  from  the  earliest 
years  the  child  must  have  religious  training  im- 
parted by  father  and  mother  with  all  the  earnest- 


58     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

ness  of  deep  sincerity.  Childhood  is  the  time  to 
instil  matters  of  faith,  nor  is  it  in  the  order  of 
nature  to  hope  that,  neglected  in  early  years,  it 
may  be  implanted  later  on  or  that  it  will  come 
as  a  matter  of  reason.  The  home  training  makes 
possible  the  use  of  chosen  parts  of  the  Bible  as 
a  text-book,  the  reading  and  memorizing  of  which 
has  been  a  part  of  the  early  training  of  great  men 
of  diverse  creeds  and  talents.  Indeed,  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis  has  furnished  the  material  for 
spelling,  reading,  and  memorizing,  as  taught  by 
the  mother  of  many  a  great  man. 


POETRY,  A  POTENT  EDUCATIONAL  FACTOR 

POETRY,  the  natural  language  of  mankind, 
can  be  made  a  potent  educational  factor. 
In  the  early  stages  of  civilization  peoples  possess- 
ing neither  models  nor  instruction,  created  poetry 
which  our  highest  civilization  can  only  feebly 
imitate.  Whether  we  turn  to  the  Old  Testament, 
to  the  early  hterature  of  Greece  and  Rome,  to 
that  of  ancient  Wales  and  Brittany,  or  to  the 
Arthurian  and  Nibelungen  legends,  we  find  spon- 
taneous poetry  and  its  materials  such  as  our  de- 
naturalized culture  refuses  longer  to  yield.  Mod- 
em poetry,  Uke  modem  life,  is  too  complex  to  be 
acceptable  to  the  tmsophisticated  mind.  In  the 
old  Gaelic  literature  there  are  legends  resplendent 
with  a  beauty  pertaining  to  altogether  new  things. 
The  child  also  is  looking  upon  a  world  crowded 
with  marvelous  new  things.  Early  poetry,  there- 
fore, or  that  dealing  with  primitive  things,  is 
especially  attuned  to  the  child  mind. 

Poetry  does  not  mean  merely  rhythmical  verses 
and  jingling  rhymes  that  please  by  their  meter 
and    similarity    of    terminal   or   initial    sounds. 


6o     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Poetry  is  the  expression  of  beautiful  thought  in 
harmonious  language.  It  is  art  and  thought  in 
one.  It  marks  the  middle  ground  between  the 
thought  and  the  thing,  between  man  and  nature, 
where  feeling  glides  into  reasoning.  Poetry  in- 
terprets life  for  us.  Primitive  poetry  is  based 
upon  specific  concerns  intimately  related  to  man 
— ^singleness  of  ideas,  of  action,  of  purpose.  When 
the  world  was  young  gods  walked  the  earth  and 
mingled  with  men.  The  great  poems  arise  with 
the  traditional  folk-tales.  Such  poems  as  the 
*' Iliad"  and  the  *' Odyssey,'*  which  were  the  de- 
light of  infant  Greece,  were  handed  down  by 
word  of  mouth  through  many  generations. 

Poetry  is  inborn  in  man;  it  is  the  language  of 
childhood.  So  the  child,  with  an  inventive  fancy 
that  enriches  everything,  may  be  called  a  poet. 
Stevenson  says  every  boy  is  **part  poet,  part  pi- 
rate, part  pig."  He  has  within  him  latent  forces, 
possibilities  of  immeasurable  extent,  the  traits  and 
tendencies  of  a  himdred  ancestors,  a  mind  so 
plastic  that  every  touch  makes  an  indelible  mark. 
He  participates  in  the  eternal.  Yet  he  thinks 
in  terms  of  his  own  experience,  and  asks:  Is  God 
everywhere?  Is  He  in  the  garden?  Then  if  I 
throw  a  stone,  do  I  hit  God?  Does  He  own 
everything?  Does  He  own  my  toys?  Isn't  God 
selfish  if  He  owns  my  toys?  Each  child  is  to  itself 
the  center  of  a  world  bounded  by  the  horizon  of 
its  experiences  and  peopled  largely  by  the  crea- 
tions of  its  mind.     For  the  child  time,  space,  and 


POETRY  6i 

number  have  no  meaning.  The  world  is  full  of 
beauty,  and  the  child  is  full  of  awe.  No  long  use 
has  dimmed  the  eye  of  the  yoimg  soul.  The 
commonplace  is  wonderful,  and  the  wonderful  and 
terrible  are  commonplace.  The  most  common 
objects  are  glorified.  The  meadow  brook  is  a 
mighty  stream.  The  rose-bush  towers  above  his 
head.  There  is  no  definite  line  between  the  real 
and  the  unreal.  The  little  fellow  longs  to  follow 
the  woodland  path  for  a  glimpse  of  the  giant 
castle  in  the  forest  gloom.  He  dreams  of  the 
marvelous  land  the  mountain  hides  from  view. 
Even  the  Tales  of  the  Arabian  Nights  might  easily 
have  been  enacted  in  his  own  back  yard.  The 
splendor  of  their  imagery  and  their  wealth  of 
exaggeration  do  not  strike  inharmonipusly  the 
powerful  fancy  of  the  child,  with  its  wistful,  long- 
ing, colorful  dreams. 

He  who  knows  the  mind  of  the  child,  knows 
the  evolution  of  the  mind  of  the  race,  and  under- 
stands the  well-established  truth  that  the  his- 
tory of  the  individual  epitomizes  the  history  of 
mankind.  The  ancient  sagas,  with  their  figura- 
tive and  heroic  language,  reflect  the  character- 
istics of  the  early  peoples — ^their  intensity  of  feel- 
ing, their  facts  and  fancies,  their  strength  and 
weaknesses — ^all  mental  characteristics  of  the 
little  child.  And  just  as  the  race  grew  out  of 
the  age  of  poetry  into  the  age  of  reasoning,  so  is 
it  with  the  child.  From  the  age  of  poetry  we 
pass  on  to  that  of  prose  and  reason.    Reason  and 


62     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

logic,  unlike  poetry,  are  subject  to  the  active  con- 
trol of  the  mature  mind  only. 

The  love  of  poetry  is  never  a  product  of  reason- 
ing. It  springs  from  and  is  cultivated  through 
the  feelings.  It  is  a  matter  of  faith.  It  requires 
the  believing  frame  of  mind  characteristic  of  the 
infancy  of  the  world.  Childhood  is  the  time  of 
faith.  The  young  child  is  naturally  a  poet.  It 
may  be  said  that  at  the  age  of  about  ten  the  child 
is  prepared  to  emerge  from  the  region  of  fancy, 
the  riot  of  imagination,  the  society  of  the  poet 
and  the  dreamer,  from  fairyland,  to  the  sobering 
prose  of  fact.  Reasoning  manifests  itself;  imag- 
ination loosens  its  tenacious  hold;  judgments, 
even  if  intemperate,  begin  to  be  formed.  Now 
the  language  of  prose  begins  to  find  a  place,  not 
at  first  superseding  entirely  the  thought  and  dic- 
tion of  the  poet,  but  running  side  by  side  there- 
with, and  at  no  time  without  interwoven  threads. 
As  the  reasoning  faculties  develop  and  the 
critical  talents  grow  keener  the  children  become 
cynical,  and  begin  to  feel  ashamed  of  their  old 
poetical  ardor.  Therefore  let  us  give  the  child 
real  poetry  during  the  years  when  his  imagina- 
tion is  receptive  for  the  thought  of  the  poet,  for 
by  delay  the  gift  is  lost.  This  endowment  should 
be  nourished  with  care.  That  is  a  ghastly  literary 
training  that  does  not  feed  the  heart  and  imagina- 
tion. To  deprive  the  young  child  of  poetry  is  to 
starve  a  soul  hungering  for  its  proper  food. 

In  its  early  years,  then,  the  child  ought  to 


POETRY  63 

study  the  best  poems  in  our  language,  and  memo- 
rize some  of  the  masterpieces.  The  reading  should 
consist  chiefly  of  real  poetry,  not  merely  of  good 
verse.  Better  than  at  any  subsequent  period, 
you  can  thus  form  the  child's  literary  taste.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  make  him  acquainted  with  all 
or  even  many  of  the  masterpieces.  Here  the 
saying  of  the  old  Greek  holds  good,  that  the  half 
is  often  more  than  the  whole.  A  single  poem 
carefully  studied,  memorized,  and  loved  will  do 
more  for  the  child  than  a  dozen  that  are  indiffer- 
ently skimmed.  The  trouble  is  that  real  poetry 
is  too  often  left  until  late  in  the  course  of  instruc- 
tion, while  trash,  supposed  to  fit  the  child's  in- 
tellect, is  substituted.  This  is  absurd  and  harm- 
ful. If  we  nurture  the  minds  of  our  children 
during  the  early  years  on  the  best  literature,  if  we 
place  them  in  the  society  of  great  men,  they  will 
not  be  satisfied  with  the  dime  novel  or  the  *' best- 
seller" in  later  years. 

Many  a  teacher  will  be  appalled  at  the  idea  of 
presenting  Mark  Antony's  speech  to  boys  and 
girls  of  nine  years.  Why  not  give  it  to  them  ?  The 
language  itself  is  not  too  difficult.  True,  some 
of  the  thought  is  above  their  appreciation,  as  it 
often  is  above  the  adult's.  Were  it  not  so,  it 
would  not  be  worth  reading.  You  do  not  expect 
to  get  from  any  fine  piece  the  whole  significance 
at  first,  but  only  after  exhaustive  study  and 
familiarity.  Not  only  ought  the  child  to  read 
Mark  Antony's  speech  and  feel  and  enjoy  it,  but 


64     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

he  should  memorize  every  word.  He  will  never 
tire  of  repeating  the  phrases,  for  each  new  time 
he  finds  something  in  them  that  he  had  not  felt 
before.  Tell  the  children  of  Julius  Caesar,  the 
man,  in  such  a  way  that  not  a  child  in  the  room 
will  be  indifferent.  This  done,  we  need  not  fear 
but  that  some  day  they  will  read  Roman  history 
without  compulsion.  We  are  not  striving  to  pro- 
duce prodigies,  but  we  surely  want  the  children 
to  carry  something  of  culture  and  taste  into  their 
every-day  life.  It  would  be  hard  to  form  a  series  of 
lessons  richer  in  literary  content,  and  more  potent 
to  cultivate  simple,  energetic,  picturesque  expres- 
sion than  this  speech.  The  very  words  are  ani- 
mate with  spirit.  Heart  and  mind  alike  are  stirred, 
and  the  child *s  appreciation  of  its  power,  beauty, 
and  simplicity  will  increase  as  the  years  go  by. 
One  of  the  reasons  for  selecting  this  piece  of  poe- 
try is  that  it  is  one  of  the  few  things  that  will 
nev^r  grow  stale  with  use.  It  will  live  through 
the  ages.  The  child  will  love  it  as  soon  as  he 
can  imderstand  it,  and  the  man  of  seventy  will 
love  it  still  more. 

Some  may  protest  that  this  or  an  equally  good 
poem  is  too  long  to  be  memorized  by  young  chil- 
dren. We  shall  not  ask  them  to  learn  it  all  in 
one  day  or  in  a  week,  but  any  child  can  commit 
to  memory  four  or  five  lines  at  a  lesson.  Assign 
a  suitable  portion  to  be  first  learned  and  then 
written  correctly  from  memory.  When  com- 
pleted the  whole  poem  should  be  written  from 


POETRY  6s 

beginning  to  end  without  consulting  a  guide. 
This  is  a  real  test  of  ability. 

We  can  introduce  even  five-year-olds  to  great 
and  sublime  poems.  It  should  not  be  necessary 
to  justify  our  pleading  by  saying  that  the  best 
in  literature  is  not  too  good  for  the  youngest  chil- 
dren. We  should  not  have  had  to  do  so  fifty 
and  more  years  ago.  But  modem  methods  and 
the  routine  of  our  schools  keep  the  child  from 
early  acquaintance  with  masterpieces.  Why  not 
choose  the  best  poetry  instead  of  the  regulation 
stock  of  First  Readers  and  Supplementary  Read- 
ers? We  should  not  longer  waste  the  child's 
most  impressionable  period  upon  the  unlovely, 
the  absurd,  or  the  commonplace.  Perhaps  you 
recall  how  the  cat  sat  on  the  mat  and  chased  the 
rat;  how  the  frog  sat  on  the  log  and  sang; 
the  ox  ate  out  of  the  box;  the  dog  bit  the  cow's 
tail.  Would  you  not  prefer  that  so  much  effort 
of  your  own  had  been  expended  in  storing  your 
mind  with  the  magnificent,  subtle,  and  pictu- 
resque ideas  embodied  in  the  noblest  literature? 
The  irresistible  power  of  great  writers  impels 
their  devotees  to  seek  these  things  not  only  in 
literature,  but  in  all  life. 

In  the  schools  of  the  past  the  memory  was  cul- 
tivated beyond  the  other  faculties,  and  sometimes, 
it  might  appear,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others. 
Yet  this  was  not  entirely  bad,  for  at  least  the 
mind  had  in  itself  the  material  upon  which  the 
other  faculties,  such  as  imagination,  feeling,  and 


66     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

emotion,  could  thrive.  The  individual  had  knowl- 
edge as  a  foundation  for  thinking,  and  whether 
he  learned  to  think  or  not  depended  a  good  deal 
upon  the  man  himself. 

To-day  the  memory  is  neglected.  This  may 
sound  extreme  to  people  who  have  heard  much 
said  of  the  cramming  in  oiur  schools,  the  memo- 
rizing of  definitions,  and  the  gorging  for  examina- 
tions. But  such  things  consist,  in  the  main,  of 
isolated,  scrappy  information,  bits  of  knowledge 
having  little  permanent  value,  taken  into  the 
mind  with  the  imderstanding  that  it  is  to  be  re- 
tained but  temporarily.  Reason  says  to  Memory : 
*' Just  hang  on  to  this  for  a  Uttle  while,  until  that 
test  is  passed,  and  then  let  it  go."  Excessive 
reading  weakens  the  memory.  Quite  different 
indeed  was  the  practice  of  learning  long  and  dif- 
ficult poems,  whole  chapters  from  the  Bible, 
speeches  of  the  world's  great  orators,  books  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey — ^things  that  have  literary 
content,  fine  pictures  for  the  mind's  gallery,  and 
lessons  for  life.  If  equal  in  the  first  place  to  the 
strain  of  acquiring,  the  mind  fed  upon  such  things 
as  these  becomes  strengthened. 

Let  us  have  to-day  more  of  the  things  that  feed 
the  imagination  in  a  healthful  way,  for  one  of 
the  greatest  things  in  the  world  is  imagination. 

Every  little  child  should  learn  the  Mother 
Goose  rhymes.  They  are  based,  though  perhaps 
unconsciously,  upon  psychological  principles,  in 
that  they  tell  stories  within  the  comprehension 


POETRY  67  . 

of  imiversal  childhood,  and  tell  them  in  the  order 
in  which  the  equivalent  questions  arise  in  the 
child's  mind.  The  following  scheme,  showing  the 
natural  sequence  of  the  story  in  Mother  Goose 
rhymes,  was  discovered  by  an  ingenious  mother 
in  telling  the  rhyme  to  her  little  boy.  She  began 
with  the  line,  ''A  Uttle  boy  went  into  the  bam,*' 
then  paused,  waiting  for  a  very  natural  question. 
It  came  shortly,  ''Then  what  did  he  do?"  Mother 
Goose  answers,  '*  He  lay  down  in  the  hay."  After 
a  moment  of  thought  came  the  next  question, 
**  And  then  what  happened  ?'*  And  again  Mother 
Goose  answers,  ''An  owl  came  out  and  flew 
about."  From  the  time  the  child  can  speak  give 
him  Mother  Goose.  Did  you  ever  realize  the 
very  important  part  that  is  played  in  literature 
by  such  characters  as  Old  King  Cole  or  Tweedle- 
dum and  Tweedledee? 

These  rhymes  belong  to  the  kindergarten  period. 
Having  passed  that,  the  child  can  begin  to  learn 
the  beautiful  epic  "Hiawatha."  You  will  be 
told  by  popular  writers  and  lecturers  that  the 
children  love  the  poems  written  by  the  chil- 
dren's poets,  such  as  Stevenson  and  Eugene  Field. 
These  two  men  and  others  have  indeed  written 
exquisite  poems  of  childhood,  but  it  is  you  and 
I  that  enjoy  them,  not  the  children,  while 
"Hiawatha,"  though  not  written  primarily  for 
children,  is  the  child's  poem.  Children,  given 
their  choice  between  "The  Duel,"  by  Field,  or 
"My  Shadow,"  by  Stevenson,  on  the  one  hand, 


68     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

and  either  a  repetition  or  a  continuation  of 
*' Hiawatha/'  on  the  other,  will  seldom  make  the 
latter  take  second  place. 

There  is  no  reason  why  every  American  child 
is  not  better  and  happier  for  knowing  by  heart 
the  folk-epic  of  his  land.  It  is  so  constructed  that 
the  difficulties  gradually  but  materially  increase, 
keeping  pace  with  the  learner's  increasing  powers, 
and  with  the  growth  and  learning  of  the  hero. 
Because  of  this  continuity  of  thought  and  struc- 
ture its  educational  value  is  incomparably  greater 
than  an  equal  quantity  of  good  but  assorted 
literattu-e.  One  of  the  faults  of  the  public  schools 
is  the  fragmentary  teaching  that  precludes  any 
systematic  study.  A  single  great  poem  learned 
and  loved  is  worth  a  smattering  of  a  hundred. 

If  the  mother  is  not  on  friendly  terms  with 
this  poem  she  will  be  repaid  for  cultivating 
familiarity  with  it,  reading  the  whole  and  ac- 
quiring the  pronunciation  of  the  Indian  names. 
Then,  too,  there  is  a  real  advantage  in  memoriz- 
ing beforehand  the  lines  she  will  give  the  child 
for  a  lesson.  She  repeats  these  Hnes  many  times 
and  lets  the  learner  say  them  with  her.  She  may 
do  this  day  after  day  and  the  child  will  not  weary 
of  it.  You  are  taking  advantage  of  that  stage 
in  its  mental  development  when  it  rejoices  in 
repetition,  demanding  a  favorite  story  over  and 
over,  the  details  of  which  must  not  vary  one  jot 
nor  tittle.  The  child  will  learn  a  few  new  lines 
each  week,  but  the  time  element  matters  little. 


POETRY  69 

You  are  giving  him  this  beautiftil  creation,  a  new 
world;  you  are  making  him  appreciate  a  great 
poem,  and  you  are  doing  no  small  thing. 

Some  may  object:  **How  can  a  child  learn  a 
poem  which  it  cannot  read?'*  Teach  the  poem 
little  by  little,  just  as  Mother  Goose  was  given. 
Begin  with  these  resonant  lines: 

By  the  shores  of  Gitche  Gumee, 
By  the  shining  Big-Sea- Water, 
Stood  the  wigwam  of  Nokomis, 
Daughter  of  the  Moon,  Nokomis. 
Dark  behind  it  rose  the  forest, 
Rose  the  black  and  gloomy  pine-trees, 
Rose  the  firs  with  cones  upon  them. 

The  child  must  see  the  lake,  the  Gitche  Gumee, 
the  Big-Sea- Water.  And  if  in  his  horizon  there 
is  no  shining  Big-Sea- Water,  no  firs  with  cones 
upon  them,  you  certainly  can  get  pictures  of 
them.  Here  are  new  words  of  the  every-day 
kind — SHORES,  forest — which  are  to  be  made 
clear.  The  boy  or  girl  will  listen  to  these  lines 
many  times  and  will  repeat  them  over  and  over, 
with  the  following  to  complete  the  picture: 

Bright  before  it  beat  the  water, 
Beat  the  clear  and  sunny  water, 
Beat  the  shining  Big-Sea-Water. 

Words  are  things.  That  word  forest  perhaps 
opens  up  new  possibilities  of  thought  and  fancy 


70     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

to  the  child.  Consider  the  words  and  phrases 
these  few  lines  have  added  to  his  vocabulary — 
not  isolated  words,  but  used  in  a  proper  setting 
where  each  speaks  forth  its  meaning:  shores , 
foresty  gloomy  pine-trees,  upon  them,  behind  it, 
before  it,  beat,  sunny  water.  Few  stronger  argu- 
ments for  the  teaching  of  real  poetry  need  be 
advanced  than  this  widening  of  the  vocabulary 
in  the  direction  of  plain,  simple  speech.  The 
words  so  strung  together  secure  to  themselves  a 
permanency  in  the  mind.  Beside  verses  such 
as  these,  the  much-favored  infant  food,  *'I  Love 
little  Pussy,  Her  coat  is  so  warm,''  and  kindred 
compositions,  seem  no  more  soul-satisfying  than 
the  dancing  of  a  wooden  doll. 

The  true  epic  marshals  for  us  the  scenes  and 
thoughts  in  orderly  array,  as  just  shown — ^first 
the  landscape,  then  we  are  introduced  to  the 
young  hero: 

There  the  wrinkled  old  Nokomis 
Nursed  the  little  Hiawatha, 
Rocked  him  in  his  linden  cradle, 
Bedded  soft  in  moss  and  rushes, 
Safely  bound  with  reindeer  sinews; 
Stilled  his  fretful  wail  by  saying, 
''Hush!    the  Naked  Bear  will  hear  thee!" 
Lulled  him  into  slumber,  singing, 
"Ewa-yea!    my  little  owlet! 
Who  is  this,  that  lights  the  wigwam? 
With  his  great  eyes  lights  the  wigwam? 
Ewa-yea!    my  little  owlet!" 


POETRY  71 

In  these  twelve  lines  will  be  found  many  al- 
lusions that  must  be  made  clear — stories  of  Indian 
children,  descriptions  of  the  reindeer,  home  life 
of  the  owl  and  owlet.  Answer  the  child's  ques- 
tions, but  do  not  spoil  the  whole  undertaking  by 
questioning  him  at  every  point  nor  by  thrusting 
explanations  upon  him.  Once,  when  a  small 
learner  failed  to  ask  the  meaning  of  '*  fretful 
wail,'*  the  writer  was  betrayed  by  curiosity  into 
asking  if  he  knew  what  the  words  meant.  Im- 
mediately by  way  of  definition  came  forth  a 
realistic  imitation  of  the  wail  of  a  fretful 
baby. 

The  poem  should  be  read  with  expression 
again  and  again,  so  that  the  pictures  are  clear, 
the  ideas  associated,  the  rhythm  felt.  Memo- 
rizing will  then  very  nearly  take  care  of  itself. 
But  as  it  is  not  alone  the  pictures  and  the  idea 
we  want,  but  the  rhythm  as  well,  the  child  must 
learn  the  words  exactly  right,  so  that  he  will 
not  make  the  blunder  later  on,  as  many  grown 
people  do,  of  shortening  or  lengthening  the 
quoted  line,  as  though  a  syllable  more  or  less  did 
not  make  much  difference.  Frequently  you  will 
hear  even  a  good  teacher,  in  attempting  to  repeat 
from  memory  such  a  line  as,  **Saw  the  moon  rise 
from  the  water,''  say  inadvertently,  *'Saw  the 
great  moon  rise  from  the  water,"  thus  utterly  de- 
stroying the  meter,  a  thing  she  would  not  have 
done  in  any  selection  had  she  really  learned  poe- 
try in  childhood. 
6 


72     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 
Now  consider  the  passage  immediately  following : 
Many  things  Nokomis  taught  him. 

In  these  lines  you  have  the  opportunity  of 
bringing  to  the  beginner  a  glimpse  of  surrounding 
worlds — the  stars,  the  comet,  the  Northern  Lights, 
the  Milky  Way.  These  will  furnish  material  for 
many  an  engrossing  talk. 

Next  comes  a  part  of  the  poem  filled  with 
music,  poetry,  nature,  life.  It  sings  itself  to  the 
heart  of  the  child  from  first  to  last. 

At  the  door  on  summer  evenings 
Sat  the  little  Hiawatha. 

And  the  lines  following. 

The  child  who  has  learned  by  heart  the  first 
fifty  lines  of  Hiawatha's  childhood  wants  to  know 
what  the  little  Indian  boy  did  next.  He  is  filled 
with  the  mysterious  charm  of  the  poem,  and 
does  not  want  to  leave  this  little  Indian,  now  his 
friend  and  spirit  playmate.  He  wants  to  hear 
more  of  his  experiences,  real  events,  for  nothing 
is  more  genuine  to  a  child  than  the  things  of  the 
imagination.  He  learns  the  meaning  of  the  words 
as  he  goes  along,  and  the  mother  will  have  her 
hands  full  explaining  these  definitions.  Take  just 
one  part  of  the  poem  at  a  time,  such  as  the  story 
of  the  moon,  story  of  the  rainbow,  the  owls  hoot- 
ing in  the  forest.  With  each  advanced  part  you 
will  notice  that  the  child  memorizes  with  greater 
ease,  and  you  can  proceed  to  the  teaching  of  English. 


VI 

HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH 

WHAT  are  the  first  steps  in  teaching  a  child 
to  read  "Hiawatha"  and  other  poems  for 
itself?  The  method  is  dictated  by  unbiased  com- 
mon sense.  Start  in  as  your  mother  was  taught, 
and  as  she  would  have  taught  you.  Begin  with 
the  alphabet  in  the  old-fashioned  way.  Teach 
the  names  of  the  letters.  The  letter  is  ''S/'  not 
'*the  sound  the  snake  makes  when  it  is  angry." 
Again,  it  is  *'M,"  not  '*the  sound  the  bossy  cow 
makes."  Give  the  child  credit  for  having  in- 
telligence. In  the  first  place  you  yourself  are 
not  much  interested  in  a  thing  whose  name  you 
do  not  know.  A  child  does  not  ask  **What  is 
that  for?"  nor  ''What  does  it  do?"  He  asks, 
"What  is  that?"  meaning  its  name.  Would  you 
refuse  to  tell  a  child,  "That  is  a  fence,"  but  explain 
its  nature  as  "a  barrier  to  ingress  and  egress"? 
For  learning  the  alphabet  no  text-book  is  needed. 
The  child  may  learn  the  alphabet  from  its  blocks, 
which  are  a  most  effective  medium.  Show  the 
letter  A,  and  ask  the  beginner  to  see  how  many  of 
these  it  can  find.  Let  the  boy  or  girl  make  the 
letters  by  laying  sticks.     With  blunt  scissors  he  or 


74     EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT  HOME 

she  may  cut  out  the  letters  from  old  papers.  All 
this  is  training  the  eye,  the  judgment,  the  awk- 
ward little  fingers.  Devise  games  with  the  let- 
ters to  teach  spelling,  and  gradually  and  slowly 
teach  the  sounds  represented  by  the  letters. 

When  the  child  has  learned  a  considerable 
amount  of  poetry  and  knows  the  alphabet  and 
something  of  spelling  and  phonetics,  it  may  be 
given  a  book.  It  associates  and  connects  the  mem- 
orized words  with  their  printed  symbols.  Sudden- 
ly it  makes  the  discovery  that  the  printed  page 
holds  something  of  boundless  interest.  It  has  been 
acquiring  a  love  of  poetry  which  is  only  cultivated 
through  the  feelings.  It  brings  to  the  words  glowing 
thought  and  reads  into  them  a  life  and  vitality 
such  as  the  historic  rat  and  cat  never  inspired. 

As  for  the  child  being  already  familiar  with 
what  he  is  to  read,  it  is  true  here,  as  elsewhere, 
that  you  get  out  of  a  book,  a  sermon,  a  college 
course,  what  you  bring  to  it.  **He  that  would 
bring  home  the  wealth  of  the  Indies  must  carry 
out  the  wealth  of  the  Indies."  Only  the  thinking 
mind  gets  new  thoughts  from  the  printed  page. 
When  the  mind  is  braced  with  ideas,  with  self- 
relying  thought,  then  the  pages  of  whatever  book 
we  read  become  luminous  with  manifold  allusion. 
In  the.  public  school  the  child  acquires  a  me- 
chanical aptitude  for  pronouncing  the  symbols 
for  words,  and  then  the  name  of  reading  is  applied 
to  the  result.  The  pronunciation  of  the  word, 
the  phrase,  the  sentence,  may  be  perfect;    the 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  75 

understanding  of  what  is  read  is  nil.  Reading 
is  of  less  importance  than  mind-training,  so  let 
the  child  memorize  long  selections  before  asking 
him  to  read.  It  is  not  time  lost.  Then  without 
ceremony  give  him  the  book.  At  the  first  line, 
**By  the  shores  of  Gitche  Gumee,''  he  may  begin 
to  spell  out  the  words.  Considering  that  he  knows 
this  by  heart,  he  will  not  have  to  spell  many  of 
them  for  you.  How  often  a  little  child  says, 
"Please  let  me  alone;  I  can  read  this  by  myself.'* 
Do  not  hurry  him  by  helping  him  unsolicited. 
This  discovery  of  his  that  he  can  read  is  one  of 
the  important  moments  of  his  life. 

You  may  ask  why  the  reading  offered  for  the 
second  or  a  later  year  is  of  the  same  kind  as  that 
for  the  first.  Although  the  same  material  is  given 
to  all  children  to  read,  to  memorize,  and  to  spell, 
no  hard  and  fast  rule  as  to  quantity  is  laid  down, 
except  that  each  shall  strike  his  own  gait,  shall  ask 
his  own  questions,  shall  take  his  own  time  to  learn. 
A  list  of  questions  to  develop  the  subject  is  not 
furnished  in  this  book.  That  is  left  to  the  child 
and  the  poet.  They  have  always  been  rare  com- 
pany for  each  other. 

Our  reading-lesson  might  occasionally  be  con- 
ducted after  this  fashion.  Let  us  suppose  that 
the  children  have  learned  the  alphabet  and  can 
spell  a  few  words.     Write  on  the  board  the  lines 

At  the  door  on  summer  evenings 
Sat  the  little  Hiawatha. 


76     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Perhaps  the  children  have  akeady  memorized 
this.  They  may  read  it.  They  may  copy  it. 
More  of  the  passage  will  be  read,  discussed, 
memorized,  written  on  the  board.  The  mother 
may  illustrate  it.  Answer  the  children's  ques- 
tions. Such  a  lesson  as  this  will  doubtless  fill  the 
entire  period  in  the  home  school,  but  in  it  we 
have  taught  all  the  essentials  except  arithmetic. 
We  have  taught  reading,  writing,  drawing,  geog- 
raphy, history;  we  have  been  training  the  eye, 
the  ear,  the  hand,  we  have  fed  the  imagination 
and  developed  the  memory.  We  may  do  more 
than  this.  The  teacher's  drawings  on  the  board 
in  colored  crayon  will  be  a  source  of  delight  and 
inspiration  to  the  little  ones,  who  will  eagerly 
imitate  them.  There  may  be  one  child  whose 
special  gift  is  in  this  direction,  and  he  will  not 
be  satisfied  with  merely  copying,  but  will  make 
his  drawing  express  his  own  interpretation  of  the 
poem.  By  all  means  encourage  this.  We  ought 
to  watch  always  for  indications  of  the  child's 
special  gift,  and  when  we  find  talent  we  should 
foster  it.  Take  the  seemingly  stupid  boy  and 
find  out  his  difficulty.  You  may  be  rewarded  by 
discovering  that  his  mind  is  busy  with  things  far 
beyond  his  years.  The  test  of  a  good  school  is 
the  facility  with  which  its  scheme  adapts  itself 
to  every  human  intellect. 

The  work  may  profitably  begin  at  a  regular 
time  each  day.  Do  not  stop  a  child  who  is  work- 
ing earnestly  at  one  thing  in  order  to  have  him 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  77 

do  something  else.  This  is  the  way  teachers  de- 
stroy concentration,  the  lack  of  which  they  after- 
ward bewail.  It  matters  little  what  kind  of 
activity  is  employed,  if  the  child  is  busy  of  his 
own  volition;  it  means  growth  and  unfolding. 
It  cannot  be  too  often  said  that  much  of  the  suc- 
cess of  this  teaching  depends  upon  doing  one  ^ 
thing  only  at  a  time  and  doing  it  thoroughly. 
Do  not  imdertake  several  subjects  in  a  day,  each 
for  a  few  minutes,  but  have  steady,  persistent 
work  upon  one  until  something  real  is  accom- 
plished. 

Stories  are  a  necessary  part  of  child  life. 
Msop's  Fables  seem  the  very  primer  of  worldly 
wisdom,  teaching  good  lessons  for  life.  What 
greater  fun  is  there  for  a  little  fellow  than  to  take 
his  box  of  letters  and  spell  out  the  story  of  the 
Fox  and  the  Grapes,  either  with  your  help  or 
copying  it  from  the  book?  Then  leave  the  story 
on  the  table  for  father's  admiration  when  he 
comes  home  from  work.  Use  these  stories,  too, 
for  training  in  close  attention.  Tell  one  of  them 
to  the  child  and  let  him  repeat  it  to  you.  Do 
this  every  day.  Before  many  days  the  stories 
may  substantially  increase  in  length.  This  prac- 
tice teaches  a  child  to  express  himself  coherently 
and  to  better  advantage  than  will  a  later  course 
in  rhetoric.  Naturally  we  should  choose  stories 
that  the  child  likes,  but  at  the  same  time  our  seri- 
ous purpose  is  to  produce  a  taste  for  sober  read- 
ing.    Do  not  imagine  that  the  two  aims  are  in- 


78     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

compatible.  There  are  stories  that  lead  to  the 
enjoyment  of  the  Bible  and  of  Shakespeare,  even 
of  the  essayists.  So  read  your  boy  the  poems 
that  he  likes,  the  fairy  stories  and  the  fables  and 
legends  that  never  grow  old.  They  will  all  ex- 
pand his  mind.  In  another  place  is  given  a  list 
of  the  poems  that  may  profitably  be  known  by 
the  time  a  child  is  eight  or  nine.  A  few  of  the 
good  books  the  mother  can  read  aloud  are  also 
listed.  Some  will  say  these  selections  are  too 
hard  for  the  child,  but  we  are  not  looking  for  easy 
things.  The  reading  that  is  hard  for  a  child  is 
the  reading  out  of  which  he  gets  something.  Of 
course  there  are  numberless  books  that  an  eight- 
year-old  would  be  able  to  read  and  may  want  to 
read,  but  if  it  has  only  a  few  books  much  is  made 
of  that  few.  It  is  not  a  good  thing  for  a  child 
to  be  humped  over  a  book  all  day.  Bodily  ac- 
tivity comes  first.  Like  other  young  animals, 
children  need  it.  A  child  of  six  or  seven  should 
be  working  with  the  mother  about  the  house 
helping  with  the  different  tasks,  and  in  this  way 
learning  to  do  them.  Besides  helping,  he  ought 
to  play  with  other  children,  and  also  to  play  alone 
for  a  while.  Since  he  is  learning  in  every  waking 
moment,  more  than  all  else  he  should  have  plenty 
of  sleep. 

As  a  typical  result  of  the  early  training  of  the 
mind  through  reading,  the  following  example  by 
an  experimental  school  may  be  offered.  Some 
pupils  who  had  entered  after  two  years  in  a  pub- 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  79 

lie  high  school  were  told  to  memorize  Bryant's 
**Thanatopsis."  Every  member  of  the  class  pro- 
tested that  this  was  an  impossibility — no  one 
ever  did  such  a  thing.  Then  a  class  of  children 
about  twelve  years  old,  who  had  had  two  years  of 
good  training,  were  assigned  the  same  task.  They 
fell  to  work,  and  in  a  few  days  succeeded.  A  child 
of  nine,  whose  whole  teaching  had  been  individual, 
asked  permission  to  learn  the  assignment.  Under 
other  circumstances  this  piece  of  literature  would 
not  have  been  given  to  one  so  young.  But  in 
this  case  she  was  told  that  she  might  learn 
the  poem.  She  mastered  it,  including  spelHng 
and  definitions  of  terms,  in  half  the  time  of  the 
children  of  twelve  who  had  a  different  founda- 
tion, and  they  in  turn  mastered  it  in  half  the 
time  of  the  pupils  of  seventeen,  who  had  been 
shamed  into  an  honest  effort  to  get  the  les- 
son. 

There  is  another  type  of  English  work  which 
will  necessitate  more  of  the  mother's  time  than 
that  so  far  discussed,  but  it  will  satisfy  the  needs 
of  the  child,  so  the  mother  will  feel  repaid.  Let 
the  mother  take  Longfellow's  **  Courtship  of  Miles 
Standish,"  and  study  the  poem  carefully,  looking 
up  in  the  dictionary  the  words  that  are  no  longer 
in  daily  use.  Let  her  refresh  her  memory  with  a 
little  historical  research;  then  when  well  armed 
begin  to  read  this  poem  to  the  little  learner. 
The  first  four  lines  are  given  as  an  illus- 
tration : 


8o     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

In  the  old  Colony  days,  in  Plymouth  the  land  of  the 

Pilgrims, 
To  and  fro  in  a  room  of  his  simple  and  primitive 

dwelling, 
Clad  in  doublet  and  hose,  and  boots  of  Cordovan 

leather. 
Strode,  with  a  martial  air,  Miles  Standish  the  Puritan 

captain. 

Pedagogically,  you  are  supposed  to  deal  with 
the  complete  sentence,  but  how  can  you  do  it 
here?  We  shall  not  try.  You  can  only  go  as 
far  as  **In  the  old  Colony  days.''  You  will  have 
questions  aplenty  to  answer.  It  v^U  probably 
be  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day  before  you  get 
the  chance  to  complete  the  line  and  make  men- 
tion of  Plymouth  the  land  of  the  Pilgrims.  What 
was  Plymouth?  And  who  were  the  Pilgrims? 
There  is  no  use  thinking  you  can  go  further  until 
this  is  threshed  out.  What?  Take  two  days  to 
read  one  line  of  poetry?  Our  reading  is  not  to  be 
pronouncing  words,  but  thought-getting.  You 
will  not  get  far  in  this  before  you  have  satisfied 
yourself  of  the  educative  value  of  ''answering  the 
child's  questions."  Now  when  the  first  line  is 
plain  sailing  read  it  again,  with  the  next.  Do 
not  explain  ''to  and  fro"  unless  you  are  asked. 
See  if  the  meaning  cannot  be  suggested  by  the 
context.  Have  you  never  visited  a  school-room 
and  wished  you  could  muzzle  the  talkative  teacher 
who  gave  the  children  no  time  to  think?  But  the 
primitive  dwelling,  the  log  cabin  of  the  settler. 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  8i 

you  must  be  prepared  to  describe  minutely  in 
word  and  picture.  And  you  must  be  just  as 
ready  to  present  the  doughty  Httle  warrior,  his 
doublet  and  hose  and  leather  boots.  Then  read 
these  four  lines,  for  the  rhythm  as  much  as  for 
the  vocabulary.  Here  and  there  ask  the  child 
to  repeat  the  passage  after  you,  but  do  not  stipu- 
late that  he  give  it  in  the  words  of  the  book,  nor 
in  his  own  words;  in  fact,  say  nothing  as  to  the 
manner  of  presentation,  but  let  it  truly  be  given 
in  the  child's  own  way. 

This  suggestion  will  indicate  the  treatment  of 
the  whole  poem.  But  remember  it  is  not  adapted 
to  all  children  of  seven  or  even  eight,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  things  not  to  be  given  if  the  child  does 
not  want  it.  Just  think  of  what  this  treatment 
of  the  entire  poem  would  embody :  learning  new 
words,  within  the  child's  comprehension,  yet  diffi- 
cult, and  so  giving  him  a  superior  vocabulary; 
training  his  ear  to  a  sense  of  rhythm;  adding 
botmtifully  to  his  stock  of  information.  Here  is 
history  and  geography  taught  in  the  natural  way, 
and  it  might  be  added  that  it  is  as  near  the  formal 
teaching  of  these  subjects  as  is  desirable  before 
the  tenth  year.  Another  valuable  feature  of  this 
long  poem  is  that  the  interest  will  be  great  enough 
to  carry  the  child  to  the  completion  of  the  work. 
Through  this  sustained  interest  and  attention 
we  develop  voluntary  concentration. 

When  this  stage  of  progress  has  been  reached 
more  heed  may  be  given  to  written  English,  but 


82     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

there  need  be  only  the  simplest  principles  of  tech- 
nical grammar.  The  study  of  grammar  has  lit- 
tle to  do  with  correctness  of  speech  or  writing; 
these  depend  more  upon  home  training.  Techni- 
cal grammar  is  excellent  mind-training  for  the 
right  period,  as  are  mathematics,  but  that  period 
does  not  begin  during  the  first  ten  years  of  the 
child's  life.  We  should  have  written  reproduc- 
tions of  such  models  as  **The  Legend  of  Sleepy 
Hollow"  and  ''Evangeline,"  letter-writing,  and 
much  copying  of  the  best  poetry  and  prose.  Few 
realize  the  wonderful  benefit  to  be  obtained  from 
copying  for  a  half -hour  daily  the  best  passages 
from  our  great  authors.  Copying  good  literature 
obviates  the  need  of  memorizing  rules  for  punc- 
tuation and  capital  letters.  In  no  other  way  can 
a  degree  of  scholastic  ability  be  attained  so  surely. 
Reading  is  indeed  good,  but  transcribing  has  im- 
measurably greater  value.  To  form  the  habit  in 
childhood  of  giving  a  period  of  intensive  study 
daily  to  the  great  masters  of  our  language  con- 
stitutes a  training  that  indescribably  furthers  the 
pursmt  of  scholarship.  Looking  up  the  definition 
of  each  word  that  is  new,  rare,  interesting,  or  diffi- 
cult gives  a  richness  of  vocabulary  that  is  a  fair 
index  of  richness  of  thought.  Perhaps  it  is  to 
this  kind  of  study  that  Emerson  refers  when  he 
says  that  one  hour  spent  in  study  each  day  will 
make  of  an  ignorant  man  a  well-informed  one  in 
ten  years. 
A  well-known  writer  was  recently  asked  how 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  83 

she  had  obtained  her  education,  and,  particularly, 
her  expressive  and  picturesque  vocabulary,  that 
seems  to  have  a  flavor  other  than  that  of  the 
schools.  With  her  permission  the  story  is  re- 
produced here: 

**  As  a  small  child  I  was  eager  to  read,  and  seeing 
my  father  sit  night  after  night  with  a  volume  of 
poetry  in  his  hand,  plainly  enjoying  the  contents, 
I  would  seek  the  same  book  by  day,  vainly  trying 
to  understand  and  enjoy  it  also.  I  complained 
to  my  mother  that  the  book  did  not  say  anything, 
so  mother  told  me  to  read  the  same  selection  a 
great  many  times  and  it  would  say  something. 
This  I  did,  having  chanced  upon  Longfellow's 
**  Sands  of  the  Desert  in  an  Hour-Glass/*  un- 
til much  of  the  meaning  became  clear  to  me. 
Other  single  poems  became  intelligible  and  a 
deHght  by  the  same  method.  As  this  occurred 
when  I  was  eight  years  old,  you  will  see  that  it 
is  not  an  example  of  precocity.  I  grew  to  like 
poetry,  reading  the  same  things  many,  many 
times,  finding  something  new  at  each  reading. 
A  year  later  I  was  presented  with  a  volume, 
Lytton's  Kenelm  Chillingly,  whose  pompous  Eng- 
lish style  had  proved  insufferably  heavy  for  the 
former  owner.  Though  now  an  omnivorous 
reader  and  a  lover  of  the  very  feel  of  a  book,  I 
looked  into  my  treasure  with  some  dismay,  fof 
how  could  any  one  make  sense  out  of  those  mon- 
strous words  ?  Yet  a  sense  of  loyalty  to  the  donor 
or  of  shame  at  acknowledging  my  distress,  in- 


84     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

cited  me  to  diligence.  So  I  opened  the  book  and 
the  dictionary  side  by  side  and  went  to  work. 
Nor  did  the  proceeding  prove  distasteful.  The 
reading  at  first  went  very  slowly,  since  so  many 
new  words  must  be  defined,  but  by  and  by  I 
noticed  that  in  looking  for  one  word  other  mean- 
ings and  words  were  noted,  that  I  was  later  to 
meet,  and  the  sense  of  growing  power  decreased 
the  labor  and  brightened  the  task,  so  that  the 
completion  of  the  book  marked  a  distinct  epoch 
in  my  life.  At  nine  I  had  learned  how  to  study 
and  had  formed  the  study  habit,  had  developed 
concentration  and  perseverance  to  an  important 
and  noticeable  degree,  and  had  acquired  the  power 
to  do  a  piece  of  hard  work. 

**  The  next  year  came  another  phase  of  my  edu- 
cation. Thackeray's  Vanity  Fair  fell  into  my 
hands,  and  I  abandoned  myself  to  the  joy  of 
that  wonderful  book.  Understand  it?  No,  only 
here  and  there.  But  scarcely  had  I  begun  when 
my  older  brother,  whom  I  worshiped,  eyed  the 
title  with  disapproval  and  suggested  that  I  shotdd 
not  waste  my  time  on  novels — I  might  better  be 
studying.  Here  was  certainly  a  crisis.  I  would 
not  for  ten  thousand  worlds  displease  that  brother 
by  ignoring  his  advice,  nor  could  I  possibly  re- 
linquish the  book.  My  mind  suggested  a  com- 
promise. I  would  copy  the  book  as  I  went  along, 
for  surely  copying  was  disagreeable  enough  to  be 
called  studying.  This  satisfied  my  brother,  and 
that  entire  voltmie  was  written  painstakingly  in 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  85 

what  was  at  first  a  featureless  scrawl,  and  at  last 
the  characteristic  hand  of  to-day. 

*'In  this  undertaking  I  discovered  certain  fixed 
usages  pertaining  to  punctuation  and  such  points 
that  had  not  attracted  attention  when  I  merely 
read  Kenelm  Chillingly  with  my  friend,  the  dic- 
tionary. The  use  of  commas  seemed  to  be  gov- 
erned by  certain  laws  that  I  came  to  recognize 
long  before  I  could  put  them  into  words.  Semi- 
colons, too,  had  a  nice  way  of  balancing  a  sentence, 
although  at  times  I  could  not  satisfy  myself  that 
a  period  would  not  have  done  just  as  well.  Capi- 
tals were  easily  accounted  for,  and  I  personally 
liked  the  paragraphs  for  the  way  in  which  they 
were  indented.  AH  of  these  points  I  carefully 
reproduced  in  my  manuscript. 

*  *  In  time  I  came  to  observe  something  of  the  laws 
of  structure,  that  related  sentences  were  grouped 
into  a  paragraph,  that  a  new  chapter  usually 
dealt  with  new  incidents  or  scenes,  and  that  the 
book  did  not  tell  you  at  the  beginning  the  im- 
portant thing  it  had  to  say,  but  led  you  carefully 
to  it.  This  was  the  way  in  which  I  learned  to 
write.'* 

The  method  so  indicated  is  simple,  yet  most 
effective;  it  is  hard,  yet  not  too  difEctdt.  It  is 
not  a  new  scheme  of  education,  and  would  pass 
unquestioned  by  such  men  as  Franklin  or  Horace 
Greeley. 

Here  is  an  English  lesson  planned  to  occupy 
our  entire  school.     Read  a  selection  to  the  chil- 


86     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

dren — a  page  or  less.  Going  back  to  the  first, 
I  reread  a  passage  and  ask  for  this  to  be  told 
to  me.  Every  one  sets  to  thinking,  and  when 
I  get  a  good,  clear-cut  sentence  I  write  it  on  the 
board.  If  no  sentence  good  enough  is  offered, 
I  give  one.  I  continue  in  this  way  for  perhaps 
half  an  hour,  during  which  time  I  have  held  the 
interest  of  all,  for  all  have  an  equal  chance  of 
giving  an  acceptable  answer,  and  I  have  a  credit- 
able paragraph  or  more  on  the  board.  Then  the 
children  copy  this.  The  little  ones  get  a  few 
words  written,  the  older  ones  the  whole  exercise, 
and  the  advanced  students  are  permitted  to  con- 
tinue in  their  own  way,  telling  the  passage  read. 
Thus  an  hour,  often  more,  gives  one  the  best 
effort  of  every  child  in  the  room. 

Little  ones  love  repetition.  We  should  take  ad- 
vantage of  this  by  letting  them  have  the  good 
poems  over  and  over.  1  taught  Mark  Antony's 
speech  to  some  children  of  seven.  They  memo- 
rized the  whole  of  it  in  about  six  weeks.  Yet  there 
was  scarcely  a  day  throughout  the  remainder  of 
the  year  that  these  children  did  not  come  to  me 
and  ask  me  to  read  them  this  poem.  They  knew 
it  by  heart,  yet  they  would  rather  listen  to  it  than 
go  out  to  play. 

This  brings  us  again  to  the  subject  of  reading. 
Learning  to  read  must  go  hand  in  hand  with  the 
taste  for  the  worth-while  in  reading,  else  you  will 
agree  with  me  that  the  individual  is  better  off, 
and  the  world  better  off,  for  his  not  learning  to 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ENGLISH  87 

read.  I  defy  any  one  to  show  me  that  reading  in 
itself  has  served  one  good  turn  for  people  whose  sole 
literature  is  the  daily  paper  and  the  vicious  novel. 

Let  us  recapitulate. 

Reading  should  be  the  great  essential  in  the 
instruction  of  a  child. 

The  right  way  is  indicated  in  this  chapter  on 
teaching  English. 

Follow  the  wrong  way,  and  trouble  begins  with 
the  beginning. 

Hothouse  methods  of  teaching  this  subject  are 
responsible  for  the  chief  difficulty  in  the  public- 
school  course. 

The  so-called  sight  method  goes  to  create  super- 
ficiality because  the  child  calls  a  word  what  it 
looks  like,  not  what  it  is.  This  habit,  then,  per- 
meates all  his  work.  It  is  an  artificial  method. 
Rapid  pronunciation  of  words  is  called  reading. 
The  aim  is  rapidity  instead  of  thoroughness. 

The  meaning  of  word  or  passage  or  selection  is 
not  to  be  taken  into  account.  The  reading  does  not 
need  to  mean  anything.  Therefore  it  is  not  reading. 

Much  more  is  attempted  than  can  possibly  be 
carried  out,  ever  so  much  more  than  in  the 
schools  of  olden  times. 

Showy  and  artificial  methods  have  crowded  out 
and  usurped  the  place  of  plain,  natural  methods. 

The  aim  is  quantity,  not  quality. 

An  essential  subject  is  so  crowded  with  worth- 
less detail  as  to  obscure  real  worth  and  make  dis- 
crimination difficult. 
7 


VII 

HOW    TO  TEACH   SPELLING 

IT  needs  but  little  argument  to  convince  an 
interested  mother  that  her  child  should  be  a 
good  speller.  If  reading  is  the  main  tool  of 
knowledge-getting,  then  spelling  is  assuredly  the 
first  requisite  of  good  reading.  To  be  a  good 
speller  implies  more  than  the  mere  ability  to 
avoid  errors  in  orthography  and  so  to  win  appro- 
bation for  mechanical  nicety.  A  habit  of  ac- 
curacy and  consistency,  though  it  be  only  in  the 
writing  of  words,  may  well  lead  toward  forming 
like  habits  in  deeds. 

We  learn  to  spell  only  by  spelling.  The  *' im- 
proved'* methods  of  teaching  reading  ignore  to 
an  alarming  extent  the  place  and  value  of  spelling 
in  school  and  in  life.  They  treat  the  word  as  a 
whole  to  be  recognized  by  sight,  and  train  the 
child  to  call  a  word,  not  what  it  is,  but  what  it 
looks  to  be.  The  real  way  to  know  a  word  is  to 
be  acquainted  with  its  parts.  As  some  discussion 
is  given  to  this  in  the  chapter  on  English,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  learning  to  read,  we  shall  be 
brief  here. 


HOW  TO  TEACH  SPELLING  89 

Many  a  mother  fears  to  teach  her  child  to 
spell  lest  it  interfere  with  his  fitting  nicely  into 
the  mechanism  of  the  graded  school.  How  often 
we  hear  an  anxious  mother  say:  *'The  children 
are  not  taught  spelling  until  the  third  grade,  and 
the  teacher  tells  me  not  to  have  my  boy  spell  at 
home,  as  it  interferes  with  the  new  reading 
method/'  Is  not  this  the  place  for  the  mother 
to  ask  herself  this  question,  Is  it  possible  that 
being  a  good  speller  is  a  hindrance  to  progress  in 
school?  If  so,  which  is  more  important,  the  ac- 
commodation of  the  individual  to  a  rigid  school 
system  or  the  ability  to  become  an  independent 
thinker  ? 

Educators  advance  various  reasons  for  the  dif- 
ficulties encountered  in  teaching  children  to 
spell.  These  discussions  are  called  forth  by  the 
difificulties  met  in  the  grammar  and  high  school  in 
teaching  this  subject.  Little  trouble  would  arise 
if  spelling  were  rigorously  and  properly  taught 
in  the  primary  school.  We  may  say  of  the  twelve- 
year-old  or  of  the  high-school  pupil,  *'  He  does  not 
spell  because  he  is  eye-minded,  and  must  see  the 
word  before  him  in  order  to  grasp  it,*'  or  **He  is 
ear-minded,  and  gets  spelling  from  hearing  rather 
than  from  the  printed  page,"  or  "He  is  motor- 
minded,  and  does  not  get  a  word  from  seeing  or 
hearing  it,  but  must  repeat  it  frequently  before 
it  becomes  fixed."  These  things  are  undoubtedly 
true  at  the  high-school  age,  but  there  is  no  nor- 
mal child  who  could  not  learn  spelling  if  prop- 


go     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

erly  taught  at  the  period  between  six  to  ten 
years. 

Proper  teaching  includes  due  attention  to  pro- 
nunciation, enunciation,  syllabication,  training 
the  ear  to  the  letter  sounds  and  to  sound  values. 
The  best  way  is  the  simple,  direct,  common- 
sense  way,  delightfully  old-fashioned  in  method 
and  result. 

While  there  is  no  desire  to  give  a  set  plan  for 
the  mother  to  pursue,  the  following  outline  may 
prove  an  aid  in  the  beginning.  Does  the  mother 
distrust  the  simplicity  of  these  homespun  meth- 
ods ?  They  are  being  used  with  unexampled  success 
by  the  most  progressive  teachers  in  America  to- 
day. When  the  child  has  learned  the  alphabet 
devise  games  with  the  letters  to  teach  him  to 
spell.  Sets  of  capital  letters,  each  letter  on  a 
small  cardboard  square,  may  be  made  at  home 
by  the  mother  and  child  cutting  out  the  letters 
from  magazines  and  pasting  them  on  cardboard. 
The  arrangement  of  letters  to  form  the  child's 
name  is  a  good  beginning.  Let  him  hunt  out 
more  letters  and  form  the  same  word.  This 
trains  the  eye  and  develops  perseverance;  it 
drills  on  the  alphabet,  and  bridges  the  way  from 
total  ignorance  of  the  structure  of  words  to  a 
knowledge  of  their  formation.  Building  the 
names  of  members  of  the  family,  of  playmates 
and  playthings,  seldom  grows  wearisome  until 
the  game  has  served  its  purpose. 

But  games  dealing  with  words  do  not  explain 


HOW  TO  TEACH  SPELLING  91 

how  to  teach  speUing  itself.  For  a  long  time  we 
ought  to  confine  ourselves  to  the  use  of  words  of 
three  letters.  Testing  different  lists  of  words 
shows  that  the  lists  here  given  are  the  most  satis- 
factory for  the  first  lessons.  Take  in  alphabetical 
order  the  words  of  three  letters  ending  in  "at": 
baty  caty  faty  haty  maty  paty  raty  saty  taty  vat  The 
entire  list  is  given  in  this  case  as  an  example  of 
the  way  the  succeeding  lists  are  to  be  made  out. 
The  child  is  taught  orally  to  spell  caty  and  is  di- 
rected to  find  the  letters  and  arrange  them  to 
form  the  word.  Then  he  is  taught  one  after  an- 
other the  succeeding  words  in  this  list,  also  spell- 
ing them  out  with  the  letters.  From  the  first, 
distinctness  of  enunciation  should  be  insisted 
upon,  the  word  c-a-t  being  sounded  so  that  each 
letter  gets  its  full  value.  At  this  time  the  child's 
vocal  organs  are  easily  trained,  and  correct  habits 
offset  the  likelihood  of  wretched  oral  habits  later. 

Several  days  or  even  weeks  may  be  required 
in  learning  the  above  list,  but  please  remember 
that  if  mastered  now  they  are  acquired  for  all 
time,  and,  what  is  also  important,  the  habit  of 
learning,  which  will  make  easier  and  easier  the 
succeeding  lessons,  is  being  established. 

We  are  then  ready  for  the  next  list  of  words 
ending  in  **an":  aw,  batty  caUy  fafiy  many  party 
ran,  tan,  van.  The  whole  list  should  be  taught 
as  thoroughly  and  carefully  as  that  preceding. 
They  will  probably  be  learned  in  half  the  time, 
since  the  only  new  sound  is  the  final  *'n."     Have 


92     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

the  letter  *'n"  distinctly  sounded  by  the  child 
so  that  he  will  observe  the  difference  in  its  forma- 
tion and  sound  from  that  of  m. 

While  it  might  seem  logical  at  this  point  to 
choose  the  series  ending  in  ad,  or  am,  the  similar- 
ity of  the  d  and  m  to  the  n  sound  seems  to  make 
it  desirable  to  give  the  young  child  a  series,  in- 
stead, with  a  change  in  the  vowel  sound,  and  so 
we  resort  to  the  words  rhyming  with  it. 


it 

bit 

fit 

hit 

pit 
wit 

sit 

Easy  as  this  transition  may  seem,  there  are 
difficulties  sufficient  to  preclude  the  idea  of  dis- 
posing of  the  list  at  a  sitting.  The  new  vowel, 
the  w,  and  the  h  sounds  will  need  attention  and 
practice  for  some  time.  The  next  series  of  in 
will  be  none  the  less  difficult. 


in 

bin 

din 

fin 

gin 

pin 

sin 

tin 

win 

For  a  long  time  the  child  should  spell  each 
day  all  the  words  he  has  thus  far  been  given, 
until  they  have  become  a  vital  part  of  his  mental 
equipment.  In  no  piece  of  work  is  it  more  un- 
questionably true  that  it  is  useless  to  go  on  to 
the  new  until  the  old  has  been  learned  thoroughly. 
In  addition  to  these  word  lists  for  oral  speUing 


HOW  TO  TEACH  SPELLING  93 

the  box  of  letters  will  be  found  invaluable.  Show 
the  child  how  to  arrange  a  chosen  Hst  of  words, 
then  mix  the  letters  and  let  him  rearrange  them. 
This  is  not  requiring  too  much,  if  only  the  letters 
he  needs  for  that  list  are  placed  before  him. 
Many  other  schemes  will  unfold  themselves  to 
the  earnest  mother.  But  do  not  lose  patience  if 
the  child  does  not  seem  to  make  rapid  progress. 
In  the  beginning,  of  all  times,  we  should  proceed 
very  slowly.  If  the  child  of  five  learns  a  single 
new  word  a  day  for  the  first  year  he  is  doing 
well.  If  in  a  five-year  course  a  child  learns  one 
word  a  day  the  first  year,  two  a  day  the  second, 
three  the  third,  four  the  fourth,  and  five  the  fifth, 
this  amotmts  to  his  being  able  to  spell  'four  thou- 
sand five  hundred  words  at  the  end  of  the  period. 
This  means  a  greater  ntmiber  of  words  than  is 
comprised  in  an  every-day  vocabulary.  If  a 
child  of  five  learns  to  spell  a  single  new  word  each 
day,  and  goes  ahead  at  the  rate  just  indicated, 
at  ten  years  of  age  he  spells  easily.  He  has  a  good 
vocabulary,  a  respect  for  correct  spelling,  and  an 
eye  and  ear  trained  to  sound  and  to  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas.  The  child  who  is  not  a  good  speller 
for  his  age  at  ten  is  not  likely  to  be  a  good  speller 
for  his  age  at  twenty. 

For  a  considerable  time  the  child's  spelling  may 
be  wisely  confined  to  short  words  that  have  no 
silent  letters.  We  may  deviate  but  little  from 
the  plan  of  using  word  lists  until  the  beginner  is 
ready  to  spell  the  words  from  his  reading.    These 


94     EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT  HOME 

lists  gradually  increase  in  difficulty.  While  the 
memory  is  plastic  we  should  constantly  direct 
the  attention  to  the  spelling  of  words.  It  is  the 
greatest  saving  in  time  and  energy  to  spell  from 
those  lists  where  only  the  letter  or  letters  preced- 
ing the  vowel  are  changed.  Notice  the  slightly  in- 
creasing difficulties  in  these  words:  and,  sand, 
stand,  strand.  Until  the  child  has  had  considerable 
training  do  not  expect  him  to  express  initiative 
in  spelling.  We  shall  look  for  this  in  a  reasonable 
time.  Here  is  an  exercise  you  can  use  with  the 
greatest  success:  give  the  child  the  word  sing 
and  ask  him  to  give  the  words  that  rhyme  with 
it.  He  will  think  of  ring,  probably  of  spring  and 
string.  You  will  notice  there  are  no  new  sounds 
in  these  words.  Have  him  pronounce  them  clear- 
ly, and  he  usually  spells  them  without  further 
assistance.  Here  is  where  he  is  learning  to  reach 
ahead  and  do  for  himself  instead  of  having  the 
teacher  lead  him. 

The  following  words  fit  in  well  with  the  work 
of  a  six-year-old.  Always  arrange  the  lists  in 
alphabetical  sequence.  This  makes  for  orderly 
classification  that  will  be  a  great  and  unconscious 
help  when  the  pupil  comes  to  use  the  dictionary : 


bad 

bag 

bay 

cap 

caw 

bug 

cad 

fag 

day 

gap 

daw 

dug 

dad 

gag 

fay 

hap 

jaw 

hug 

fad 

hag 

gay 

lap 

law 

jug 

gad 

jag 

hay 

map 

maw 

lug 

HOW  TO  TEACH  SPELLING  95 


had 

lag 

jay 

nap 

paw 

mug 

lad 

nag 

lay 

rap 

raw 

pug 

mad 

rag 

may 

sap 

saw 

rug 

pad 

sag 

nay 

tap 

tug 

sad 

tag 
wag 

pay 
ray 
say 
way 

dip 

big 

bid 

fly 

cry 

bow 

cot 

hip 

dig 

did 

my 

dry 

cow 

dot 

lip 

fig 

hid 

ply 

fry 

how 

got 

nip 

gig 

kid 

shy 

pry 

mow 

hot 

rip 

pig 

lid 

sky 

try 

now 

jot 

sip 

rig 

rid 

sly 

row 

lot 

tip 

wig 

spy 
sty 
thy 
why 

sow 
vow 

not 
sot 
tot 

bun 

bob 

bog 

fop 

cod 

bet 

dun 

cob 

cog 

hop 

god 

get 

fun 

fob 

dog 

lop 

hod 

jet 

gun 

hob 

fog 

mop 

nod 

let 

pun 

job 

hog 

sop 

pod 

met 

run 

mob 

jog 

top 

rod 

net 

den 

dew 

bar 

am 

cub 

up 

ax 

fen 

few 

car 

dam 

hub 

cup 

lax 

hen 

hew 

far 

ham 

rub 

pup 

tax 

men 

mew 

mar 

jam 

tub 

sup 

wax 

pen 

new 

par 

ram 

ten 

pew 

tar 

yam 

wen 

96     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


bed 

beg 

boy 

gum 

but 

bud 

ox 

fed 

keg 

coy 

hum 

cut 

cud 

box 

led 

leg 

joy 

rum 

hut 

mud 

fox 

red 

peg 

toy 

sum 

nut 

fix 

dim 

mix 

him 

six 

rim 

The  above  work  is  stifEcient  not  only  for  weeks, 
but  even  for  months.  After  the  child  has  learned 
these  words  he  easily  masters  longer  ones.  It 
is  best,  however,  to  keep  up  the  practice  of  gi\'ing 
words  that  have  no  silent  letters.  The  following 
lists,  each  consisting  of  from  five  to  fifteen  words, 
are  given  only  in  part.  We  should  strive  to  have 
the  child  proceed  independently  in  making  these 
lists,  after  he  has  been  given  the  key-word,  as 
*'and'*  in  the  first  list.  His  words  ought  to  be 
given  him  orally  before  they  are  written  or  formed 
with  the  paste-board  letters,  in  order  to  avoid 
having  a  wrong  word  impressed  upon  his  mind. 


and 

end 

bent 

art 

belt 

camp 

bind 

band 

bend 

cent 

cart 

felt 

damp 

find 

hand 

fend 

dent 

dart 

melt 

lamp 

hind 

land 

lend 

lent 

mart 

pelt 

cramp 

kind 

sand 

mend 

pent 

part 

welt 

clamp 

mind 

stand 

pend 

rent 

tart 

spelt 

stamp 

rind 

strand 

rend 

sent 

chart 

smelt 

bland 

send 

tent 

start 

brand    tend      vent      smart 
grand    vend      went 


HOW  TO  TEACH  SPELLING 


97 


gland 

wend 

scent 

blend 

spent 

spend 

ant 

bound 

out 

old 

pant 

found 

gout 

bold 

rant 

hound 

lout 

cold 

scant 

mound 

pout 

fold 

grant 

pound 

shout 

gold 

By  this  time  the  child  may  learn  words  con- 
taining occasional  silent  letters : 


ate 

bane 

fade 

age 

ale 

came 

date 

cane 

made 

cage 

bale 

dame 

fate 

lane 

wade 

page 

dale 

fame 

gate 

mane 

blade 

rage 

gale 

game 

ape 

cave 

bare 

less 

bore 

cape 

gave 

care 

mess 

core 

tape 

lave 

dare 

bless 

fore 

shape 

nave 

fare 

chess 

gore 

all 

ell 

ill 

gilt 

beck 

cull 

ball 

bell 

bill 

hilt 

deck 

dull 

call 

cell 

fill 

silt 

neck 

gull 

fall 

dell 

gill 

tilt 

peck 

hull 

bull 

bolt 

cord 

count 

hole 

dome 

full 

colt 

ford 

fount 

mole 

home 

pull 

dolt 

lord 

mount 

pole 

tome 

cope 

dove 

carp 

bard 

bake 

oil 

hope 

love 

harp 

card 

cake 

boil 

lope 

glove 

sharp 

hard 

lake 

coil 

mope 

shove 

lard 

make 

foil 

98     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


dine 
fine 
kine 

bide 
hide 
ride 

eat 

beat 

feat 

hung 
lung 
rung 

cool 
fool 
pool 

beet 
feet 
m^eet 

bee 
fee 
lee 

beam 
ream 
seam 

urn 

burn 

turn 

ear 

dear 

fear 

fight 

light 
might 

ink 

kink 

Hnk 

dish 
fish 
wish 

camp 
damp 
lamp 

kept 
wept 
slept 

ire 

dire 

fire 

bank 
dank 
lank 

deep 
peep 
weep 

arm 
farm 
harm 

best 
lest 
nest 

bump 
dump 
hump 

our 

hour 

sour 

ace 

dace 

lace 

While  the  child  is  acquiring  the  above  lists  he 
may  also  learn  to  add  ''s,"  *'ing/*  and  **ed"  to 
a  word,  such  as  land — lands,  landing,  landed. 

According  to  the  plan  given  for  teaching  reading, 
the  child  has  memorized  by  this  time  parts  of 
the  poem  *' Hiawatha.'*  He  may  now  have 
spelling-lessons  taken  from  this  poem,  learning 
each  day  a  few  words  that  have  no  especial  diflft- 
culty.  You  may  allow  the  child  to  make  its  own 
lists,  taking  the  words  from  "Hiawatha,'*  or  from 
the  story  of  Rip  Van  Winkle,  or  from  any  good 
literature.  The  child  will  seldom  be  dishonest 
about  the  words  it  chooses  by  selecting  easy  or 
familiar  ones.  On  the  other  hand,  it  will  not 
write  a  foolishly  long  list.  An  assignment  of  this 
kind  is  a  test  of  judgment  as  well  as  an  exercise 
in  spelling. 


HOW  TO  TEACH  SPELLING  99 

The  child  of  eight  or  nine  should  spell  at  all 
convenient  times.  His  mother  may  hear  his  les- 
sons and  give  him  an  occasional  new  word  at  odd 
moments  while  she  works  about  the  house.  A 
very  busy  mother  can  hear  the  child's  lessons 
while  she  is  darning  or  ironing.  She  can  teach 
him  to  spell  the  names  of  familiar  objects  about 
the  house  and  yard. 

The  mother  who  examines  these  lists  will  not 
consider  them  a  formidable  assignment  for  the 
child  to  master  by  the  age  of  nine  or  ten,  yet  the 
child  who  enters  school  for  the  first  time  at  this 
age  equipped  with  the  knowledge  and  training 
indicated  by  this  brief  outline,  if  given  a  fair 
chance,  will  hold  his  own  among  children  who 
entered  the  school  at  six. 


VIII 

HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC 

NO  doubt  arithmetic  has  had  its  full  share  of 
prominence  among  the  obligatory  subjects 
in  every  school  curriculum.  Not  only  has  more 
attention  been  given  to  it,  but  frequently  twice 
as  much  time  as  is  allotted  to  the  teaching  of 
other  subjects,  and  in  addition  a  too  generous  ap- 
portionment of  home  preparation.  The  results 
are  admittedly  poor,  and  call  for  adjustment  and 
betterment.  There  is  no  quarrel  with  those  who 
place  arithmetic  among  the  essentials  of  ele- 
mentary teaching.  The  objection  is  to  the  pre- 
vailing method  and  system. 

Arithmetic  will  not  demand  much  time  nor 
worry  for  the  six-year-old.  He  is  ^tting  a  sense 
of  number  without  direct  teaching.  He  is  learn- 
ing to  cotint,  perhaps  to  ten,  perhaps  to  one  htm- 
dred,  but  just  so  far  as  his  ambition  carries  him. 
He  may  coimt  people,  toys,  animals,  birds,  pen- 
nies. He  may  make  change  for  a  nickel,  possibly 
for  a  dime.  Eoiowing  the  cost  of  a  two-cent  stamp, 
he  may  study  out  the  cost  of  two  or  three  stamps, 
but  his  mind  should  not  be  puzzled  and  confused 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        loi 

with  numbers.  That  work  is  most  unimportant 
now,  especially  if  he  does  not  evince  an  eagerness 
for  it. 

The  number  sense,  one  of  the  latest  to  appear, 
comes  only  through  natural  development.  The 
process  cannot  be  hastened;  and  even  if  it  could, 
there  would  be  no  particular  gain  in  so  doing. 
To  the  little  child  twenty  means  no  more  than 
three,  while  one  himdred  is  just  a  name.  A 
small  girl  will  tell  you  there  were  more  than  a 
million  people  on  the  street-comer  as  she  came 
by,  and  that  she  is  kept  awake  nights  by  a 
thousand  cats  in  the  back  yard.  Since  numbers 
are  so  meaningless,  do  not  imagine  you  can  teach 
arithmetic  to  the  child  or  hasten  very  much  his 
tmderstanding  of  the  subject.  He  must  learn 
by  actually  cotmting  different  objects  many  times. 
If  you  attempt  to  teach  a  small  child  all  the 
arithmetic  assigned  by  the  course  of  study  to  his 
years,  you  will  so  hopelessly  confuse  him  that  you 
defeat  your  own  purpose.  The  child  at  six  is 
entering  the  mental  stage  corresponding  to  the 
beginnings  of  civilization.  Like  primitive  man, 
he  has  little  use  for  or  comprehension  of  numbers 
beyond  five  or  ten,  perhaps  twenty,  and  does  not 
grasp  the  meaning  of  higher  numbers.  By  way 
of  rote  you  could  at  this  time,  or  earlier,  teach 
him  combinations  of  higher  numbers  to  a  con- 
siderable extent;  yet  the  problematical  benefit  is 
not  worth  the  labor.  It  has  been  demonstrated 
that  we  have  to  work  for  a  year  to  teach  a  six- 


I02   EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

year-old  child  what  he  could  learn  by  his  own 
efforts  in  a  single  month  when  he  is  eight  years 
of  age.  The  child  at  ten  is  just  as  far  in  advance 
and  fully  as  good  a  student  of  arithmetic  if  he 
commences  his  study  at  eight  rather  than  at  six. 

The  age  at  which  a  child  may  best  begin  the 
study  of  arithmetic  depends  chiefly  upon  its 
individual  mental  development,  and  will  mani- 
fest itself  by  a  very  apparent  interest  in  count- 
ing. When  your  boy  asks,  *'What  comes  after 
eleven?'*  or  ''What  comes  after  nineteen?'*  you 
may  safely  begin  to  teach  him.  No  text-book  is 
needed.  Number  work  is  to  be  direct,  simple, 
logical,  and  fitted  to  the  child's  needs.  It  is  not 
to  be  taught  as  a  matter  of  memory,  but  is  to  be 
worked  out  step  by  step  by  the  learner. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  no  other  sub- 
ject do  teachers  commit  so  many  pedagogical 
crimes,  or  go  so  directly  counter  to  the  laws  of 
child-psychology  and  of  mind  growth,  as  in  the 
teaching  of  arithmetic.  One  of  the  hardest 
things  for  the  teacher  is  to  let  the  child  alone, 
let  him  make  mistakes  and  unmake  them,  trust 
his  intelligence,  his  growing  sense.  She  should 
direct,  not  merely  control.  She  should  advise, 
not  merely  dictate.  We  sacrifice  one  of  the  main 
points,  the  use  of  judgment,  the  practice  of  think- 
ing, in  order  to  save  time.  It  is  here  that  a  talk- 
ative teacher  should  be  muzzled  and  an  officious- 
ly helpful  one  handcuffed.  The  work  of  the 
teacher  in  the  beginning  is  to  show  the  child  how 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC         103 

to  work,  to  help  himself,  to  give  him  in  this  way 
a  fair  start.  Then  the  teacher  should  assume  an 
alert  passivity,  merely  watchful,  very  rarely  di- 
rectly helping,  but  occasionally  directing  dis- 
creetly. The  child  will  then  develop  indepen- 
dence and  initiative  that  shall  gain  in  momentum 
as  he  grows  into  manhood.  The  highest  and 
noblest  purpose  of  the  teacher  has  been  obtained 
when  the  child  has  been  taught  to  be  an  inde- 
pendent, resourceful  thinker  and  worker. 

How,  then,  are  we  to  teach  arithmetic?  The 
child,  as  we  have  said,  already  counts  to  twenty 
or  thereabouts,  and  is  interested  in  the  process. 
The  first  step  is  to  teach  counting  by  twos.  Let 
him  find  suitable  objects  of  any  kind — buttons, 
or  pennies,  or  pebbles.  There  are  several  reasons 
for  choosing  the  latter.  They  do  not  cost  money. 
They  are  natural  objects,  and  any  child  can  get 
them.  Then  for  the  sake  of  learning  what  num- 
bers actually  are,  the  learner  will  count  with  the 
pebbles  until  he  no  longer  needs  them,  at  which 
time  he  will  abandon  them  as  readily  as  a  snake 
sheds  its  skin. 

Show  him  how  to  arrange  the  pebbles  in  twos, 
and  how  to  count  them  as  such — thus,  2,  4,  6. 
This  will  be  as  far  as  the  first  lessons  go,  because 
the  arranging  and  counting  has  to  be  done  sev- 
eral times.  The  coimting  downward  by  remov- 
ing pebbles — 6,  4,  2 — ^follows.  In  these  lessons  a 
new  idea  has  entered  into  the  child's  mind.  Give 
it  ample  time  to  germinate.  Five  or  ten  minutes 
8 


I04  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

is  sufficient  time  for  each  of  the  first  lessons. 
The  great  idea  for  pupil  and  teacher  is  the  fact 
that  to-morrow  must  find  the  pupil  farther  ad- 
vanced than  to-day.  If  to-day  he  counted  to 
six,  to-morrow  he  shall  count  to  six  and  to  eight. 
The  next  day  the  lesson  starts  in  this  way  again, 
and  the  pupil  is  permitted  to  build  farther  than 
eight;  he  proceeds  to  ten.  Although  this  may 
seem  a  trifling  advance,  the  lesson  learned  in  it- 
self is  not  inconsiderable — ^it  is  the  most  impor- 
tant to  be  drawn  from  this  subject  at  this  time — 
that  we  are  building,  and  that  to-morrow  must 
find  us  farther  advanced  than  to-day.  The 
counting  downward  from  eight,  etc.,  continues, 
and  involves  no  small  mental  effort.  Account  of 
the  nimiber  of  twos  used  should  be  taken,  prefer- 
ably of  the  pupil's  own  accord.  But  the  memory 
need  not  be  forced  to  retain  the  fact  that  four 
twos  are  eight.  So  the  work  continues,  a  short 
lesson  each  day,  each  marking  unquestionable 
advancement.  At  the  end  of  a  few  weeks,  spend- 
ing five  or  ten  minutes  a  day  in  this  manner,  the 
child  will  readily  count  upward  and  downward 
by  the  twos  as  far  as  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty — 
just  so  far  as  he  goes  readily  and  joyfully. 

So  much  for  the  first  steps,  simple  indeed,  but  a 
distinct  part  of  the  fundamental  structure.  Next 
we  would  teach  or  rather  show  the  child  how  to 
learn  the  multiplication  table  of  twos.  For  this 
our  pebbles  are  the  only  requisite  material. 
Begin  with  the  two  twos.     Tell  the  child  to  place 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        105 

two  twos  on  the  table,  and  he  will  understand 
you.  Do  not  bother  about  one  two.  This  is 
obvious  to  the  child.  He  places  the  two  twos 
and  tells  you  there  are  four.  Then  arranging 
three  twos,  he  gives  the  result  as  six.  As  in  the 
counting,  we  shall  not  go  very  far  the  first  day, 
since  our  main  object  is  not  the  acquisition  of 
certain  numerical  facts,  but  the  learning  how  to 
work,  how  to  do  for  one's  self.  When  to-morrow 
comes  we  will  start  again  with  the  two-table 
from  the  beginning,  with  each  to-morrow  getting 
a  little  farther.  In  a  few  weeks  the  child  will 
know  this  table  as  far  as  12X2,  upward  and 
downward. 

While  the  distinction  may  seem  trifling,  there 
is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  vast  difference  between 
learning  the  table  of  twos,  as  2X4,  2X5,  etc.,  or 
this,  the  better  way,  4X2,  5X2,  etc.  For  this 
is  the  foundation  whereon  the  child  will  build 
all  the  succeeding  tables,  which  he  is  to  work  out 
by  the  process  of  addition.  The  second  manner 
indicated  shows  him  clearly  that  multiplication 
is  nothing  but  a  peculiar  kind  of  addition.  Just 
as  the  four  fundamental  processes  of  arithmetic 
— addition,  subtraction,  multiplication,  and  di- 
vision— ^are  more  important  than  anything  that 
follows  in  mathematics,  so  these  first  lessons  as 
here  outlined  merit  careful  consideration.  Do 
not  hurry  the  child.  What  is  there  to  hurry 
toward?  Here,  even  more  than  in  other  studies, 
the  individual  is  to  strike  his  own  gait.     If  the 


io6  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

work  prescribed  above  is  accomplished  in  two 
weeks,  very  good.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
moves  slowly  and  six  weeks  are  consumed  in  the 
task,  good  again.  Great  minds  are  usually  of 
slow  growth,  just  as  the  giant  oak  reaches  ma- 
turity gradually.  If  the  child  evinces  an  inter- 
est in  this  work  and  goes  on  with  it  ever  so  plod- 
dingly, you  may  be  content. 

We  arrive  now  at  another  stage,  which  differs 
from  the  preceding  in  two  respects — the  work 
is  of  increasing  difficulty;  the  teacher's  part  be- 
comes more  and  more  apparently  passive.  The 
child  learns  to  count  by  threes,  using  the  objects 
as  before,  proceeding  slowly  as  in  the  first  in- 
stance, mastering  thoroughly  the  work  of  each 
day,  going  a  little  farther  each  day,  getting  just 
a  little  more  self -active  and  a  little  less  dependent 
upon  the  instructor.  For  the  first  lesson  in  the 
threes,  twelve  is  quite  far  enough;  the  table  is 
learned  both  upward  and  downward,  this  con- 
stituting a  good  practical  lesson  in  addition  and 
subtraction.  He  may  look  about  for  objects 
presenting  groups  of  threes — clover  leaves,  the 
trillium,  the  prongs  of  a  fork,  etc.  Quite  likely 
in  another  week  he  will  count  by  threes  up  to 
thirty  or  even  farther,  and  downward.  At  this 
point  it  would  not  be  amiss  to  direct  the  learner's 
attention  to  the  important  fact  that,  although 
this  task  is  a  larger  one  than  the  study  of  the  twos, 
he  has  mastered  it  in  a  shorter  time  because  of 
having:  done  the  first  one  well.     You  cannot  be- 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC         107 

gin  too  early  to  impress  him  with  the  great  lesson 
that  every  day  and  every  duty  are  the  stepping- 
stones  to  greater  days  and  greater  duties. 

Of  course  you  know  that  an  up-to-date  teacher 
would  advise  you  at  this  stage  to  use  concrete 
problems  at  every  step.  Four  cows  and  three 
cows  are  how  many  cows?  At  two  cents  each, 
what  will  seven  apples  cost?  The  specific  ob- 
jection to  the  concrete  problem  as  a  main  issue 
is  that  it  makes  so  much  talk  when  the  child 
might  better  be  thinking  and  working  out  these 
things  for  himself.  The  problems  of  the  pebbles 
before  him  are  as  good  as  cow  problems  for  pres- 
ent purposes.  He  is  getting  acquainted  with 
nimibers.  However,  it  would  be  well  to  find 
time  to  **play  store"  with  him. 

Next  comes  the  multiplication  table  of  threes, 
produced  and  learned  with  objects,  step  by  step, 
as  before,  until  mastered  to  12  X 3,  and  occupjdng 
perhaps  a  week. 

This  closes  one  distinct  phase  of  the  individual 
plan,  and  marks  the  place  where  the  teacher  steps 
down  and  away,  in  so  far  as  actually  setting  the 
child  his  lesson.  Thus  far  she  has  labored  with 
him,  but  always  with  an  eye  to  the  moment  when 
he  is  to  move  ahead  with  a  certain  assumption  of 
responsibility.  The  time  is  coming,  and  but  a 
few  months  distant,  when  this  child  may  be  left 
to  himself  for  half  an  hour  quite  without  books 
or  a  set  lesson,  and  required  to  produce  a  fitting 
piece  of  work.     The  accomplishment  of  this  re- 


io8  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

suit  is  simply  a  matter  of  patient  training,  and 
the  chief  requisite  for  the  teacher  is  the  self- 
control  to  refrain  from  doing  for  the  child  work 
that  he  should  do  for  himself. 

The  twos  and  threes  being  learned,  addition, 
subtraction,  and  multiplication  tables,  you  may 
well  say  to  the  child,  "What  shall  we  do  next?" 
As  we  are  deaUng  with  a  child  above  six  years  of 
age,  we  will  expect  him  to  suggest  the  fours. 
Then  set  him  the  task  of  counting  by  fours,  pos- 
sibly to  sixteen  for  the  first  lesson.  He  is  to  have 
no  assistance,  but  must  be  allowed  his  own  time. 
The  time  element  is  not  to  enter  into  these  les- 
sons for  the  present,  since  speed  must  be  second- 
ary to  accuracy,  and  subordinate  to  the  forma- 
tion of  habit.  The  pupil  is  cultivating  the  work 
habit,  and  we  should  introduce  no  more  than  one 
problem  at  a  time.  In  the  course  of  two  or  three 
more  lessons  the  child  may  count  to  forty  by 
foiu*s.  Even  in  reciting  these  lessons  the  demand 
for  speed  should  not  be  made,  except  as  it  is 
naturally  justified  after  many  repetitions  of  the 
work.  Far  better  is  the  recurring  mental  effort 
required  to  call  up  each  succeeding  number — as 
it  was  discovered  originally  with  the  aid  of  the 
pebbles.  After  another  year  or  two,  or  with 
beginners  nine  or  ten  years  of  age,  special  drills 
for  rapidity  may  be  given,  of  which  we  shall 
speak  in  another  chapter. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  at  the  end  of  three 
months  the  child  knows  how  to  count  by  twos, 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        109 

threes,  and  fours,  to  fifty  or  thereabouts  and 
down,  and  that  he  knows  the  respective  multi- 
plication tables  to  12X4.  He  may  now  learn 
the  fives  in  like  manner,  especially  if  he  starts 
to  do  so  without  suggestion.  But  because  of 
larger  numbers  being  involved  in  the  tables,  it 
seems  better  to  start,  at  this  period,  along  an- 
other line  dealing  with  numbers  within  his  horizon. 
From  now  on  the  pupil  shotild  have  a  note-book, 
in  which  he  writes  the  lesson  learned  each  day, 
with  the  date.  This  may  represent  the  final 
lesson  just  mentioned: 

January  26,  1914. 

4 

8  2X4=  8 

12  3X4  =  12 

16  4X4  =  16 

etc. 

When  this  has  been  accomplished  we  ought  to 
begin  a  series  of  lessons  which  will  prove  most 
attractive  to  the  child,  and  whose  purpose  will  be 
explained  more  fully  later  on.  The  teacher  is 
again  in  evidence  until  the  new  line  of  work  is 
well  under  way.  We  begin  by  taking  six  pebbles 
and  requiring  the  child  to  divide  them  into  groups 
of  twos,  so  as  to  ascertain  how  many  twos  there 
are  in  six.  He  may  then  be  taught  to  write  the 
statement  in  his  note-book,  thus:  6-7-2=3.  Ex- 
plain the  meaning  of  the  symbols  in  this  state- 
ment, and  teach  him  to  read  it.     After  this  point 


no  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

is  clear,  tell  him  next  to  divide  the  pebbles  into 
groups  of  threes,  and  have  this  written  6—3  =  2, 
under  the  previous  statement.  The  next  step 
IS  to  ascertain  how  many  fours  there  are  in  six. 
The  result  may  be  written: 

64-4  =  1  and  2  remain  (the  number  remaining  being 

called  the  remainder). 
6^5  =  1  and  I  remains 
6^6  =  1 

But  no  statement  is  written  down  here  or  later 
until  the  result  has  been  ascertained  by  actual 
count.  This  is  an  example  of  the  day*s  work  in 
arithmetic  for  a  period  covering  many  weeks. 
To-day  the  number  is  six;  to-morrow  we  shall 
take  seven;  the  next  day  eight.  Some  of  the 
advantages  of  work  thus  planned  are  the  fol- 
lowing: 

Every  day  marks  a  distinct  step,  and  one  of 
increasing  difficulty.  Yet  the  difficulty  is  not 
sufficient  to  justify  the  pupil  in  looking  for  help 
or  the  teacher  in  proffering  it. 

The  analysis  of  each  number  in  this  way,  in 
conjunction  with  a  plan  to  be  given  later,  makes 
the  child  so  familiar  with  these  nimibers  that 
each  is  clearly  and  distinctly  visualized. 

This  series  helps  to  realize  the  educator's  ideal 
of  efficient  schooling — a  minimimi  of  direction 
on  the  part  of  the  teacher  producing  the  maxi- 
mum of  response  from  the  pupil. 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC         iii 

The  teacher's  part  must  be,  indeed,  a  passive 
one.  Rarely  will  she  need  to  make  a  suggestion, 
give  a  direction,  or  require  a  correction.  Here 
and  there  a  word  such  as,  **Well  done,"  '*This 
looks  better  than  yesterday's,  the  colimins  are 
straighter,  the  figures  neater,"  will  be  in  place. 
A  mistake  must  not  be  tolerated.  It  is  assumed 
that  the  work  is  not  given  to  a  child  that  is 
incapable  of  the  effort  demanded,  so  that  a 
mistake  must  be  considered  as  arising  from  care- 
lessness. Strict  measures  in  the  beginning  are  a 
true  kindness.  When  a  mistake  is  made  do 
not  permit  an  erasure;  blue-pencil  the  en- 
tire lesson  and  require  all  of  it  to  be  worked 
again. 

After  two  or  three  weeks  the  child  may  be 
shown  a  concise  way  of  stating  the  remainder  in 
division,  thus: 

i6  -^  3  =  S-^/s 

i6-f-4=4 

i6-^  5  =  3-1/5,  etc. 

It  would  not  be  wise  at  this  time  to  endeavor  to 
teach  him  anything  further  concerning  the  frac- 
tional form,  as  we  are  to  avoid  any  explanations 
or  details  that  might  result  in  confusion  to  the 
pupil's  mind.  This  is  only  a  step  toward  the 
understanding  of  fractions  that  will  be  helpful 
a  few  months  later.  Still  another  step  is  to  teach 
the  child  that  division  is  expressed  by  the  form 


112  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

20/2,  so  that  he  will  work  out  the  analysis  of  20, 
arranging  it  in  this  form: 


20- 

^2  = 

20 
2 

=  10 

20- 

-3  = 

20 
3 

=  6-2/3 

20- 
20- 

^4  = 

-5  = 

20 

4 
20 

5 
20 

6" 

=  5 
=4 

20- 

^6  = 

=3-2/6 

m  as  well : 

22-r2  = 

=  1/2 

of  : 

22 
2 

II 

22 
224-3=1/3  of   22= =7-1/3 

3 

It  is  evident  that  these  two  lessons  will  help  clear 
up  the  difficulties  usually  encountered  in  the 
teaching  of  fractions. 

The  immense  advantage  of  such  a  continuously 
developed  plan  of  number  work  is  at  once  ap- 
parent. In  it  is  comprised  recurring  practice 
and  drill  in  the  four  elementary  operations;  each 
day's  work  is  somewhat  more  difficult  and  more 
comprehensive  than  the  preceding.  The  lessons 
increase  in  length  so  gradually  that  the  child, 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        113 

with  his  increasing  capacity,  finds  himself  able 
to  complete  the  lesson  assigned  each  day.  The 
work  is  logical  and  clear  to  the  child's  mind, 
tempting  him  at  every  step  to  try  his  powers  by 
doing  more  than  is  demanded.  It  is  possible  to 
place  upon  the  child  a  measure  of  responsibility 
to  the  extent  that  a  teacher's  absence  does  not 
justify  the  child  in  being  idle  for  lack  of  knowing 
what  is  expected  of  him.  There  could  be  no 
better  method  of  cultivating  the  habit  of  work 
and  of  concentration  in  the  child  than  by  teaching 
him  in  this  way  to  master  arithmetic. 

The  practice  of  dividing  each  successive  nimiber 
by  each  smaller  number  as  far  as  a  divisor  which 
is  approximately  half  the  number  divided,  as: 

40  -7-  2  = 
40-^3  = 

to 
40  -7-  20  = 

may  be  continued  until  the  child  has  become  very 
accurate  and  no  longer  resorts  to  objects  to  prove 
the  answers.  The  use  of  objects  is  usually  aban- 
doned by  the  child  somewhere  between  the  num- 
bers 25  and  50.  Then  instead  of  measuring  every 
successive  number  one  may  use  alternate  num- 
bers. Or  if  the  child  has  shown  accuracy  and 
speed  in  measiuing  66  as  far  as  66 -=-3 3,  let  him 
take  70  for  the  next  dividend — and  now  the  as- 
signed lesson  may  be,  since  the  divisors  are  nu- 


114  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

merous,  ''Work  to  the  bottom  of  the  page" — of 
the  note-book. 

How  far  this  work  is  to  be  continued  depends 
upon  the  child,  some  working  only  to  150,  some 
to  300.  At  any  rate,  it  has  involved  such  prac- 
tice in  mental  arithmetic  that  a  solid,  sure 
foundation  is  being  laid  for  future  instruction  and 
progress.  There  can  be  no  better  mental  train- 
ing than  to  sit  down  and  think  out  a  new  table, 
whether  it  be  the  fours  or  the  twenty-fours. 

Here  is  another  helpful  scheme  that  may  be 
used  when  the  pupil  shows  a  readiness  to  profit 
thereby.  Take  cards  of  bristol-board,  3  inches  by 
5  inches — or  clean  pasteboard  will  do — and  write 
on  them  in  large,  distinct  figures  the  following 
forty-five  combinations.  Use  both  sides,  one  com- 
bination on  each. 

999999999888888887777777 
9876543 2 1876543 2  I  7654321 

666666555554444333221 
654321543214321321211 

These  cards  may  first  be  used  as  drill  in  addition, 
and  their  regular  emplo5mient  five  minutes  a  day 
so  trains  the  child  that  he  instantly  comes  to 
recognize  74-8  =  15.  Again  let  me  emphasize: 
accuracy  comes  first  in  importance.  First  give 
the  child  plenty  of  time  to  ascertain  the  right 
answer.     The  next  day  it  will  not  take  so  long. 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        115 

Next  these  cards  are  used  for  practice  on  the 
mtiltipHcation  table,  and  if  you  have  two  or  three 
children  learning  them  at  once,  so  much  the 
better.  Lead  them  to  see  something  more  than 
the  mere  product  of  numbers  shown;  they  will 
recognize  not  only  that  four  5*s  are  20,  but  also 
that  it  is  the  same  as  two  io*s,  and  the  same  as 
three  6's  and  2  more.  This  is  what  we  are  after 
— ^independent  thinking  and  initiative.  Show 
the  child  your  approval  of  his  using  his  brains  in 
finding  a  new  way  to  solve  a  problem.  For  ex- 
ample, ask  a  boy  how  he  will  find  24X25.  He 
tells  you:  *'I  shall  get  ten  25's  and  ten  25's  and 
four  25*s.''  Another  boy  says:  **Get  four  25's 
and  then  six  times  that."  You  may  possibly 
give  them  a  short  method  of  finding  the  result, 
but  present  it  to  them  as  something  to  compare 
with  their  previous  knowledge  and  judge  as  to  its 
advantages,  not  as  something  to  be  unthinkingly 
adopted  for  all  time.  This  plan  of  the  nimiber 
cards  may  be  carried  farther  advantageously  to 

2  ^ 
the  card  with  ^i' 

To  retrace  our  steps.  After  the  child  has  gone 
as  far  in  this  work  of  division  as  twenty  or  there- 
abouts he  is  to  resimie  the  study  of  the  multi- 
plication table,  and  continue  it,  paralleling  the 
division  of  the  different  nimibers.  Thus  the 
tables  are  so  much  used  and  reviewed  that  with 
the  completion  of  memorizing 'them  to  12x12 
and  farther  they  have  become  fixed  in  the  mind. 


ii6  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Nor  should  we  stop  with  12X5  or  12X9.  The 
child  ought  to  be  taught  to  employ  the  tables 
very  much  farther.  For  example,  if  he  has  diffi- 
culty in  dividing  75  by  4,  suggest  that  he  get  it 
from  the  multiplication  table,  and  that  he  begin 
perhaps  with  12  x  4  and  go  forward  until  he  as- 
certains how  many  fours  in  75. 

The  child  has  already  learned  either  incident- 
ally or  from  your  teaching  the  meaning  of  1/2. 
This  fraction  is  used  more  frequently  in  life  than 
any  other,  and  we  shall  use  it  in  many  ways. 
After  some  oral  practice  in  finding  halves,  tell 
him  to  write  in  his  book  1/2  of  nimibers  to  25, 
thus: 

1/2  of  2  =  I 

1/2  of  3  =1-1/2,  etc. 

Next  let  him  write  multiplication  tables  of  2-1/2, 
as: 

2X2-1/2=5 

3X2-1/2=7-1/2,  etc. 

of  3-1/2,  or  4-1/2,  and  so  on,  until  the  work  is 
entirely  clear  to  him. 

Before  going  any  farther  with  pure  number 
work  give  the  child  a  clear  idea  of  measure,  unit, 
and  measuring.  Take  an5^hing  for  a  unit:  a 
piece  of  stick,  a  pencil,  the  span  of  a  hand,  etc. 
Let  the  child  measure  the  length  of  a  table  in 
pencil  lengths  by  finding  out  how  many  times 
it  contains  the  length  of  the  pencil.  Let  us  as- 
simie  the  child  finds   8-1/2   times.     Then  the 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        117 

length  of  the  table  is  8-1/2  pencil  lengths,  mean- 
ing, of  course,  some  definite  pencil.  Having 
repeated  this  process  with  various  objects,  show 
the  child  the  inconvenience  of  having  different 
units,  and  that  on  account  of  this  inconvenience 
we  have  agreed  on  standard  units  of  length,  as 
the  foot,  yard,  inch,  etc.  This  same  process  is 
successively  applied  to  other  kinds  of  measure: 
money,  weight,  etc. 

Here  the  foot-rule  may  be  used  to  good  ad- 
vantage, as  the  basis  of  a  table: 


feet 

inches 

I 

1/2 

1-1/2 

=        12 

2 

= 

2-1/2 

= 

etc. 

Thus  far  would  I  explain  and  write  it,  and  then 
tell  the  child  to  continue  it  by  himself,  perhaps 
the  length  of  the  page.  He  sees  a  natural  reason 
for  a  stopping-place  at  the  bottom  of  the  page, 
but  only  an  artificial  one  if  we  invariably  say,  go 
as  far  as  12,  or  20,  or  30,  etc. 

A  line  of  work  that  seems  as  potent  in  arousing 
the  curiosity  and  interest  of  most  children  as  it 
is  helpful  is  finding  the  factors  of  nimibers,  from 
the  beginning  to  100  or  200,  or  until  the  lesson 
seems  to  have  served  its  purpose.  A  child  of 
eight  will  understand  clearly  enough  what  is 
meant  hy  factors  when  you  explain  that  3x7  =  21, 


ii8  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

and  that  3  and  7  are  said  to  be  the  factors  of  2 1 ; 
that  9X8  =  72,  and  that  9  and  8  are  factors  of  72. 
Start  the  pupil  on  this  work  by  making  him 
write  the  numbers  in  columns,  with  the  factors 
opposite,  as: 

4  =  2X2 

6  =  2X3,  etc. 

A  little  discussion  will  bring  out  the  idea  that 
such  numbers  as  2,  3,  or  5,  that  have  no  factors 
but  themselves  and  one,  must  not  be  in  the  list; 
yet,  instead  of  simply  omitting  these,  we  place 
them  at  the  bottom  of  the  page,  in  what  we  term 
the  scrap-basket,  giving  them  their  right  name, 
** prime  numbers."  Here  are  two  new  terms, 
** factors"  and  ** prime  numbers";  no  confusion 
need  result  from  giving  to  the  factored  numbers 
their  proper  name,  **  composite  nimibers,"  and 
writing  it  at  the  top  of  each  page. 

The  child  who,  taking  all  pains  possible,  has 
done  the  number  work  thus  outlined  will  rarely 
make,  in  this  kind  of  lesson,  a  mistake  other  than 
discarding  somewhat  freely  the  composite  num- 
bers he  has  failed  to  recognize  as  such.  The 
teacher  should  not  rectify  the  error  when  she  dis- 
covers it,  but  set  him  hunting  among  his  list  of 
prime  nimibers  for  numbers  that  have  factors. 

While  the  purpose  of  this  work  is  very  far  in- 
deed from  making  play  out  of  number  work,  these 
lessons  contain  the  elements  that  make  fascinat- 
ing— because  within  its  power — to  the  inquiring 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC         119 

mind  a  game,  a  puzzle,  an  undertaking  that  prom- 
ises to  be  just  beyond  its  reach  if  pupil  and  teacher 
have  not  been  alert,  zealous,  and  persistent.  At 
every  step  it  calls  forth  effort. 

No  terms  are  defined  other  than  those  based 
on  preceding  work.  The  definitions  of  factor, 
prime  number,  composite  ntimber,  etc.,  must  not 
be  given  to  the  child  until  he  has  had  consider- 
able experience  in  working  with  them  so  that  they 
are  then  given  as  names  of  known  objects,  as  of 
a  street  or  an  individual. 

After  a  week  or  two  spent  on  this  work  we 
may  proceed  a  little  further  in  considering  other 
easy  fractions.  By  cutting  up  an  apple,  teach 
the  halves  and  fourths  and  their  relations  to  each 
other.  With  the  pebbles  require  the  child  to 
take  8,  and  find  1/2,  1/4,  2/4,  3/4,  4/4.  You  are 
not  to  draw  his  deductions  for  him,  nor  very  much 
hasten  the  process  by  which  he  concludes  that 
1/2  of  a  number  equals  2/4,  nor  that  4/4  equals 
the  whole  nimiber .  The  next  day  he  may  take  1 2 , 
and  find  these  same  fractional  parts,  and  so  with 
successive  numbers  until  he  has  learned  by  de- 
grees all  you  would  have  him  learn  about  these 
fractions  and  without  interference.  While  this  step 
with  the  fractions  may  seem  unnecessary  in  view 
of  the  practice  given  in  measuring  nimibers,  as 

14-5-2  =1/2  of  14  =  7 

the  child  sees  the  fraction  in  a  different  setting 
and  a  different  light,  and  must  make  his  own  dis- 
9 


120  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

coveries.  In  his  note-book  will  be  found  such 
a  page,  worked,  of  course,  by  himself: 

1/2  of  24  =  12 
1/4  of  24  =  6 
2/4  of  24  =  12 
3/4,  etc. 
4/4,  etc. 

1/2  of  36  =  18 
1/4  of  36  = 
2/4  of  36 
3/4,  etc. 
4/4,  etc. 

A  reason  for  employing  the  entire  group  of  fourths 
for  an  extended  period  in  this  nimiber  work  is 
the  immense  advantage  gained,  and  later  on  mani- 
festing itself  when  the  child  in  the  midst  of  ex- 
amples in  fractions,  meeting  a  problem  involving 
3/4,  automatically  associates  it  with  1/4 ;  a  process 
simple  in  itself,  yet  an  ever-present  stumbling- 
block  even  in  our  grammar  and  high  schools. 

There  need  be  no  difficulty  now  in  going  to  1/8. 
For  this  a  sheet  of  paper  may  be  folded  into 
halves  and  fourths,  and  further  into  eighths.  Do 
not  hurry  over  this.  The  child  learns  by  doing 
and  by  observing  that  in  the  whole  sheet  of 
paper  there  are  2>/^\  in  1/2  of  it  4/8;  in  1/4,  2/8. 
Let  him  work  this  out. 

As  a  method  to  bring  about  familiarity  with 
fractional  relations  the  following  is  proposed. 
Start  the  child  thus: 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        121 

1/2=     =     =     — —     =     etc. 

4  8  16 

and  so  on  across  the  page,  he  writing  the  equiva- 
lents.    Next,  tell  him  to  work  1/4  in  this  way: 

1/4=    =    =    etc. 

8  16 

Then  continue  with  2/4,  3/4,  and  4/4,  unless  the 
child  understands  so  readily  the  purport  that 
only  3/4  need  be  considered. 

Now  let  him  work  with  1/8  and  all  the  eighths 
in  the  same  manner.  If  the  fourths  have  been 
reduced  to  32ds,  the  8ths  may  be  reduced  to 
64ths,  or  to  a  still  smaller  unit.  Any  difficulty 
in  the  comprehension  of  the  work,  given  here  or 
'  farther  on,  can  only  arise  from  the  fact  that  the 
pupil's  mind  is  not  yet  ready  for  it. 

Tables  may  be  constructed  from  time  to  time 
that  give  practical  drill  in  fractions,  using  again 
and  again  the  foot-rule: 

feet  inches 

1/2 

1/4 
2/4 

3/4         = 
4/4 
1-1/4     = 

1-3/4     = 

2-1/4     =  etc., 

the  child  carrying  this  table  further  by  additional 
numbers  in  the  first  column. 


122  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Use  also  tables  like  this: 


yards 

inches 

I 

= 

36 

1/2 

= 

1/4 

= 

1-1/4 

= 

1-3/4 

= 

2-1/2 

= 

et 

At  this  time  the  child  is  getting  considerable  prac- 
tice in  actual  measuring.  With  a  foot-rule  he 
finds  the  dimensions  of  tables,  rugs,  the  porch, 
and  yard.  Problems  such  as  the  following  may  be 
assigned :  find  the  length  in  inches  or  feet  of  the  four 
sides  of  the  tables;  in  feet,  of  a  room;  the  house; 
the  length  of  a  rope  reaching  around  the  room; 
around  the  four  sides  of  the  yard  or  the  house. 
Now  has  come  the  time  to  teach  1/3  by  cutting 
a  pie,  by  folding  papers,  by  separating  pebbles 
into  three  equal  parts,  always  emphasizing  the 
word  ** equal.*' 

yards  inches 

1/3 

2/3 

3/3 

1-1/3    ==       etc. 

Reverting  again  to  the  constant  practice  in 
counting,  the  child  may  learn  to  count  by  twos, 
beginning  with  i,  thus  1-3-5,  to  100,  and  down- 
ward; next  by  threes,  beginning  with  i,  as  i~4-7» 
to  about  100  and  backward.     Then  begin  with 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC         123 

2,  as  2-5-8,  etc.,  to  100  or  thereabouts.  Some 
of  this  practice  may  be  used  every  day,  along  with 
the  concrete  problems  described;  it  is  not  essen- 
tial that  this  counting  be  written  down,  but  if 
so,  let  it  be  kept  in  the  book  and  dated. 
Thus  the  practice  goes  on: 

by  4's—        I  2  3 

5  6  7 

9  10  II,  etc. 

by  s's—        I  2  3 

678 

II  12  13 

16  17  18 

For  weeks  this  kind  of  drill  may  be  kept  in  sight, 
taking  a  fresh  start  each  day.  Being  systematic, 
it  gives  the  child  opportunity  to  plan  and  think 
ahead  for  himself.  He  will  know  now  that  the 
sixes  are  to  be  learned,  and  that  if  he  begins  with 
one  to-day  he  will  begin  with  two  to-morrow. 

The  following  is  a  good  table  in  concrete  work 
that  may  be  used  at  this  point: 


pounds 

ounces 

I 

= 

16 

1/2 

= 

1/4 

= 

1/8 

= 

2-1/2 

= 

3 

= 

4 

= 

5 

= 

1/16 

= 

124  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 
This  is  another  good  table  that  he  may  have. 

rods  feet 

1  =         16-1/2 

2  = 
3 

4 
5 
6 
1/2      = 

1/4     = 
1/8     = 

This  may  be  carried  farther  by  combining  the 
whole  number  and  the  fraction,  as  in  the  other 
tables,  as  far  as  the  teacher  sees  fit  to  go. 

The  work  so  far  may  have  taken  from  one  to 
two  years,  depending  upon  the  child.  He  might 
well  start  in  here  to  learn  the  meaning  of  a 
square — a  square  inch,  a  square  foot.  He  will 
get  these  by  actually  marking  out  the  spaces  on 
paper  and  cutting  out  square  inches  and  square 
feet.  This  is  even  better  than  his  having  ready- 
made  squares  and  simply  putting  them  together. 
He  can  cut  several  square  inches  and  arrange 
them  into  squares  and  oblongs.  When  once  he 
has  learned  by  making  it  that  a  square  inch  is 
represented  by  an  area  one  inch  long  and  one  inch 
wide  he  can  place  two  such  squares  side  by  side 
and  measure  two  square  inches.  He  can  cut  out 
several  of  these  inch  squares  so  as  to  form  ob- 
longs of  the  required  number  of  inches,  such  as 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC        125 

I  X  3,  2  X  3,  3  X  3.  In  the  latter  he  may  notice 
that  he  has  a  square  containing  nine  square  inches. 
Then  he  may  start  with  an  oblong,  i"  x  4", 2"  x  4", 
3"  X  4",  imtil  he  has  a  4-inch  square  and  16  square 
inches.  He  will  not  reach  this  point  in  one  day, 
nor  in  two  days.  He  will  be  set  marking  much 
good  paper  into  squares  and  cutting  these  squares 
very  accurately.  Failing  to  do  this,  he  will  be 
directed  to  cut  more.  There  is  a  purpose  in  this 
paper-cutting,  too,  for  he  is  going  to  use  the 
squares.  He  may  get  a  sufficiently  large  nimiber 
to  make  5  and  6  inch  squares.  He  may  find  how 
many  of  these  inch  squares  are  necessary  to  cover 
one  side  of  a  book,  a  table,  etc.  Now  with  his 
ruler  he  may  carefully  construct  a  square,  one 
foot  on  each  side,  and  later  cut  out  a  sufficient 
number  of  inch  squares  to  fill  this  space.  In 
this  way  he  discovers  for  himself  that  there  are 
144  square  inches  in  a  square  foot.  An  acquaint- 
ance with  the  square  foot  brings  the  child  good 
material  for  a  series  of  valuable  lessons.  He 
knows  by  actual  work  and  cotmt  that  one  square 
foot  contains  144  square  inches.  After  the  prac- 
tice he  has  had  in  constructing  other  tables  it 
will  be  interesting  to  see  to  what  extent  he  can 
construct  this  table  based  on  the  square  foot, 
bringing  in  very  many  of  the  fractional  parts,  the 
fourths,  eighths,  sixteenths,  thirds,  ninths,  sixths, 
twelfths.  He  will  also  begin  the  task  of  drawing 
a  square  foot  and  dividing  it  accurately  into 
square  inches.    This  is  quite  an  undertaking,  and 


126  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

one  would  scarcely  expect  satisfactory  results  with 
the  first  attempt.  Many  attempts  will  qtiite 
likely  be  made  before  this  square  foot  is  divided 
into  the  144  square  inches  with  sufficient  accu- 
racy to  justify  its  acceptance  as  a  piece  of  work. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  outline  here  all  of  the 
problems  and  all  of  the  practices  in  ntunber  work, 
especially  in  simple  fractions,  that  can  be  based 
on  this  one  lesson.  There  is  good  material  in 
this  for  three  or  four  weeks'  work  in  arithmetic, 
and  the  planning  of  that  work  will  not  be  the 
least  enjoyable  and  profitable  employment  for 
teacher  and  pupil.  The  teacher  should  give  di- 
rections only  where  they  are  needed.  She  may 
suggest  a  line  of  work  which  the  child  can  profit- 
ably continue  by  himself  for  at  least  one  day. 
For  instance,  *' What  can  you  find  out  about  one- 
third  of  that  square  foot?" 

This  work  will  be  the  basis  for  surface  measure- 
ment. With  the  foot  square  of  paper  as  a  unit, 
the  pupil  may  measure  table-tops,  rugs,  floors, 
either  by  repeating  the  one  imit  or  cutting  out 
many  so  as  to  cover  the  surface. 

Do  not  think  that  because  the  child  has  learned 
to  measure  lines  he  is  ready  for  the  measurement 
of  surfaces,  nor  that  cubic  measure  immediately 
follows  on  the  heels  of  linear  and  square  measure. 
The  little  child  who  can  measure  lines  and  sur- 
faces is  no  more  ready  for  the  measurement  of 
solids  than  he  is  for  the  theory  of  limits.  Let 
him  alone  imtil  he  grows  up  to  this  many-sided 


HOW  TO  TEACH  ARITHMETIC         127 

affair.  And  when  his  mind  has  reached  that  state 
of  preparedness  through  physical  and  mental  con- 
tact and  the  desire  for  understanding  there  is 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  to  the  teaching  of 
solid  measure.  In  a  day  he  grasps  it.  Your 
neighbor  may  tell  you  that  her  little  girl  is  only 
nine,  and  has  learned  ''denominate  numbers"  in 
school.  How  has  she  learned  them?  Why,  the 
teacher  hammers  in  such  facts  as  these:  If  you 
want  to  find  area  you  multiply  length  by  breadth ; 
if  you  want  to  find  cubical  contents  you  multiply 
length,  breadth,  and  thickness  together.  And 
that  is  as  much  as  it  means  to  the  youngster. 

Do  not  worry  about  long  division.  It  is  an 
abstract  formula  that  has  no  active  value  in 
mind-training.  It  is  one  of  the  things  the  schools 
are  always  hoping  to  ** rationalize" — to  make 
concrete,  so  that  the  immature  mind  may  grasp 
the  very  reason  you  **  subtract,  bring  down  the 
next  figure,  and  divide  again."  They  will  never 
succeed.  It  remains  an  abstract  formula  even 
to  the  grown-ups,  who  find  it  a  matter  of  habit- 
uation rather  than  of  rationalization.  Rarely 
should  a  child  be  taught  long  division  before  the 
tenth  year.  Why  work  hard  to  teach  him  at 
eight  what  he  will  learn  easily  in  half  the  time 
at  ten? 

One  of  the  most  prevalent  pedagogical  crimes 
in  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  consists  in  the  prac- 
tice of  assigning  work,  conducting  recitations, 
and  planning  courses  without  keeping  in  mind 


128  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

the  eventual  freeing  of  the  child  from  the  necas- 
sity  of  having  the  teacher  plan  his  work.  In  a 
plain  and  simple  way  arithmetic  may  be  made 
the  ready  and  attractive  means  of  leading  to  in- 
dependence of  thought  and  action.  In  the  usual 
way  of  teaching  it  would  be  hopeless  to  ask  of 
the  child  to  consider  and  tell  you  what  would  be 
a  reasonable  assignment  for  the  ensuing  lesson, 
except  as  he  might  turn  to  the  book  and  estimate 
the  quantity  of  printed  questions  he  could  master, 
and  then  he  would  consider  the  space  to  be  cov- 
ered. A  child  of  eight,  on  the  other  hand,  sen- 
sibly trained  in  oral  arithmetic  can  work  by 
itself  and  may  be  profitably  and  reasonably  re- 
quired to  prepare  a  daily  lesson  without  depen- 
dence upon  teacher,  book,  or  specific  instruction 
beyond  a  single  suggestion.  Even  that  need 
not  be  given  more  than  once  a  week  in  order  to 
provide  adequate  work  and  training  for  several 
lessons.  The  work  of  the  teacher  is  chiefly  to 
supervise  and  correct  wrong  tendencies  of  mental 
growth  before  they  become  fixed,  just  as  you 
would  watch  the  growing  tree  and  help  it  to  be- 
come straight.  The  great  proportion  of  the  arith- 
metic for  these  years  at  home  will  be  mental,  the 
kind  that  sharpened  our  grandfathers*  wits,  and 
the  lack  of  which  has  hastened  the  downward 
tendency  of  modem  schools. 


IX 

HOW  TO   TEACH   WRITING  AND   DRAWING 

ART  is  the  outward  manifestation,  by  means 
I,  of  skill  and  taste,  of  alert  observation  and  a 
highly  imaginative  life.  This  impHes  the  doing 
of  things  with  ease  and  correctness,  as  it  was 
understood  by  the  great  Italian  painter  Giotto, 
who  was  asked  to  send  the  Pope  some  proof  of 
his  art.  The  artist,  who  had  given  the  world 
everlasting  proofs  of  his  art,  first  resented  such 
a  request.  When  pressed,  he  called  for  a  piece 
of  paper,  took  his  pencil,  and  drew — a  circle,  with 
its  center.  The  cotirtier  refused  to  take  this  to 
his  Holiness;  the  artist  insisted.  The  Holy 
Father  received  the  drawing,  looked  at  it,  smiled 
at  the  crestfallen  courtier,  and  asked  for  a  pair 
of  compasses.  **No  artist  ever  produced,  nor 
ever  will  produce,  such  a  perfect  work  of  art,'* 
said  his  Holiness,  when,  after  applying  the  com- 
passes, he  found  the  circle  to  be  absolutely  correct. 
**Go  to  the  artist  and  thank  him  for  the  lesson 
he  has  taught  me.*'  How  many  weary  hours, 
days,  months,  and  years  must  the  great  artist 
have  spent  to  acquire  such  wonderful  skill  and 
easy  grace. 


I30  EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT  HOME 

The  term  art,  as  applied  to  the  pursuits  recog- 
nized under  that  name,  like  other  figurative  terms, 
is  not  extremely  accurate.  The  thing  which  we 
usually  understand  by  art  is  far  from  the  plain, 
unmistakable  thing  defined  in  terms  of  Webster. 
By  the  word  art  is  meant  no  more  primarily  than 
the  power  of  performing  certain  actions  acquired 
by  experience,  study,  and  observation.  So  when 
we  speak  of  a  work  of  art  we  really  mean  a  prod- 
uct of  the  skill  existing  in  the  trained  mind  and 
trained  muscles  of  the  artist. 

If  then  we  think  of  art  in  terms  of  skill,  of 
dexterity,  of  ingenuity,  of  the  ability  to  adapt 
things  in  the  natural  world  to  our  own  uses,  we 
are  better  prepared  to  seek  the  source  of  art  in 
self-activity  rather  than  in  measured  instruction. 
There  is  true  art  in  an  arithmetic  lesson  well  done, 
in  a  reading-lesson  well  done,  in  planting  a  garden, 
hoeing  the  potatoes,  in  training  a  woodbine,  in 
preparing  a  meal.  Any  lesson,  any  good  piece 
of  work,  will  serve  to  train  mind  and  muscle  to 
act  in  harmony.  Therefore  in  this  chapter  on 
writing  and  drawing  we  shall  consider  even 
drawing  as  coming  under  the  head  of  art  only  so 
far  as  the  foregoing  and  kindred  lessons  and  tasks 
merit  being  so  classified.  We  shall  consider 
drawing  primarily  as  a  further  means  of  training 
the  eye  to  see,  the  muscles  to  act. 

Can  art,  or,  rather,  can  the  rudiments  of  art  be 
taught  to  a  child  under  ten  years  of  age?  They 
can,  and  can  be  taught  so  simply  and  thoroughly 


WRITING  AND   DRAWING  131 

that  the  normally  developed  child  will  take  to 
them  as  the  duckling  will  take  to  water.  And  if 
art  is  considered  in  terms  of  skill,  of  dexterity,  of 
ingenuity,  it  may  well  take  its  beginning  in  writ- 
ing and  drawing.  Writing,  as  required  of  the 
child  in  the  following  lessons,  represents  a  good 
piece  of  work  every  day,  steady  improvement  in 
results,  and  gain  in  the  power  of  co-ordination  of 
hand  and  eye.  Drawing,  as  the  means  of  de- 
veloping human  ingenuity,  contrivance,  and  self- 
expression,  begins  in  a  different  way,  and  is  car- 
ried on  quite  differently,  yet  side  by  side  with  the 
work  in  writing.  They  balance  each  other — the 
strict  discipline  of  wTiting  and  the  freedom  of 
drawing.  A  child  may  be  drawing  from  the  time 
he  is  able  to  hold  a  pencil.  Writing,  since  it  is 
training  in  precision,  should  not  begin  before  six 
or  seven,  or  as  soon  thereafter  as  the  mother  is 
prepared  to  devote  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  every 
day  to  the  child's  work.  The  time  to  begin  does 
not  relate  in  any  way  to  what  is  being  done  in 
other  lessons,  such  as  reading  or  arithmetic,  any 
more  than  to  garden  work  or  swimming. 

In  the  teaching  of  writing  and  drawing  we 
shall  not  discuss  the  forms  of  sense  -  training 
advocated  by  Montessori  as  leading  to  thes6 
branches,  since  these  and  allied  activities  belong 
to  the  kindergarten  period.  Anything  and  every- 
thing advocated  by  this  great  teacher  pertaining 
to  the  tactile  and  motor  senses  is  good.  Writing, 
as  an  imitative  art,  necessarily  involves  rules, 


132  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

just  as  does  any  other  occupation  or  business  re- 
quiring skill,  such  as  the  art  of  building  or  engrav- 
ing, the  art  of  navigation,  of  baseball,  of  cooking, 
and  we  shall  begin  with  the  rules.  They  need 
not  be  considered  formidable  in  any  way.  They 
are  merely  organized  modes  of  operation  serving 
to  facilitate  the  performance  of  certain  actions. 
We  live  in  a  world  where  we  are  necessarily  hedged 
in  by  rules  and  laws.  He  who  learns  to  conform 
to  rules  gams  freedom  in  the  end  through  self- 
control.  Nor  need  they  have  a  deadening  effect 
on  the  child's  spirit.  The  rule  that  says  to  forty 
children,  **You  are  to  remain  inactive  in  those 
patent  seats  for  three  or  six  hours  a  day,"  is  an 
unjust  rule.  But  the  rule  that  says,  **You  are 
to  follow  these  instructions  implicitly  for  ten  or 
fifteen  minutes,"  is  not  unjust;  it  is  an  exercise 
in  self-control. 

The  writing-teacher  must  ever  have  in  mind  the 
object  of  teaching,  which  is  not  so  much  to  im- 
part knowledge  as  mental  and  physical  disci- 
pline, the  training  to  act  in  accordance  with  well- 
established  fundamental  rules,  the  accustoming  to 
systematic  and  regular  action,  the  desire  to  do, 
the  habit  of  order  and  self-control.  She  will, 
therefore,  insist  on  strict  observance  of  the  fol- 
lowing rules,  and  will  consider  the  mere  form 
and  shape  of  the  letters  of  secondary  impor- 
tance. 

(These  instructions  are  addressed  to  the  child 
through  the  teacher.) 


WRITING  AND  DRAWING  133 

I.  Sit  squarely  before  your  desk  or  table  on  a  seat 
very  slightly  sloping  back,  and  just  high  enough  to 
place  the  slightly  raised  elbow  on  the  table. 

II.  Write  with  both  elbows  on  the  table,  so  that 
your  body  is  evenly  balanced  and  no  curvature  of  the 
spine  is  possible. 

III.  Do  not  lean  against  the  desk  with  the  chest. 

IV.  Write  from  the  very  beginning  with  ink,  so  that 
you  may  learn  to  think  and  consider  before  you  write. 
"What  is  written  stands.'' 

V.  Do  not  erase  bad  writing;  keep  it  before  your 
eyes  as  a  deterring  example,  and  try  to  write  better 
and  take  pleasure  in  your  daily  progress  and  improve- 
ment. (There  is  nothing  more  pernicious  to  the  right 
mental  development  of  a  child  than  the  promiscuous 
use  of  rubbers  for  erasing.  Rubber-tipped  pencils  in 
the  hand  of  a  little  child  are  just  as  abominable  as  chew- 
ing-gum in  its  little  mouth.  Both  tend  to  cripple  self- 
control.  The  old  abominable  slate-pencil  effectively 
combined  both.) 

VI.  Place  your  paper  or  book,  well  focused,  exactly 
in  front  of  you,  slightly  slanting  to  the  left  if  you  prefer 
slanting  writing,  perpendicularly  to  the  edge  of  the 
desk  if  you  prefer  perpendicular  writing.  (Slanting 
and  perpendicular  here  are  a  matter  of  taste.  The 
author  prefers  slanting  writing,  basing  this  preference 
on  results  obtained.) 

VII.  Rest  your  right  arm  on  its  elbow,  using  the  latter 
as  a  pivot,  and  support  it  by  the  tip  of  the  fourth  finger. 

VIII.  Hold  your  pen-holder  between  thumb  and  sec- 
ond finger,  the  first  finger  being  used  only  to  give 
pressure  downward. 

IX.  Let  your  pen-holder  point  toward  your  right 
shoulder. 


134  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

X.  The  pen-holder  should  be  about  six  inches  long, 
about  5/16  of  an  inch  thick,  and  with  a  soft  cover  (cork 
or  inflated  rubber)  at  the  lower  end,  slightly  increasing 
in  thickness  to  within  about  1-1/ 2  inches  from  the 
lower  end,  and  then  gradually  tapering  to  the  upper 
end. 

XI.  The  tfps  of  the  fingers  should  be  from  1-1/2 
inches  to  two  inches  from  the  point  of  the  nib. 

XII.  The  nib  should  be  soft,  and  neither  too  blunt 
nor  too  sharp. 

XIII.  In  writing  both  points  of  the  nib  should  touch 
the  paper,  so  the  ink  easily  flows  out  of  the  nib  with- 
out scratching  or  sputtering. 

XIV.  The  left  hand,  with  fingers  not  too  close  to- 
gether, and  nearer  to  the  body  than  the  right,  should 
hold  the  paper  or  book  firmly  in  place,  changing  its 
position  to  one  farther  from  the  body  than  the  right 
hand  when  the  writing  approaches  the  lower  edge  of 
the  paper. 

XV.  Both  feet,  neither  crossed  nor  far  apart,  should 
rest  on  some  support. 

XVI.  The  head  should  not  be  turned  and  twisted. 

XVII.  Now  start  the  child  writing  the  following 
copies  on  ruled  paper,  the  lines  being  2>/^  of  3,n  inch 
apart  from  one  another.  Do  not  proceed  to  the  follow- 
ing copy  until  the  previous  copy  has  been  thoroughly 
mastered. 

XVIII.  See  that  all  down-strokes  slant  in  the  same 
direction  and  show  pressure. 

XIX.  See  that  all  down-strokes  belonging  to  the 
same  letter  are  equally  distant  from  one  another. 

XX.  See  that  all  letters  are  separated  from  one  an- 
other by  a  space  about  twice  as  large  as  that  by  which 
down-strokes  belonging  to  the  same  letter  are  separated. 


z 


.JU^ 


^ 


'"^//jy//i 


To  be  written  without  lifting  pen  from  paper^ 


-S6r 


{Mothers  may  continue  this  series.^ 


WRITING  AND   DRAWING  135 

XXI.  See  that  words  are  separated  from  one  another 
by  a  space  three  times  as  large. 

XXII.  Carefully  attend  to  such  minor  points  as 
placing  the  i-dot  exactly  over  the  i. 

Drawing 

I  seem  to  hear  a  good,  faithful,  hard-working 
mother  exclaim:  ** But  I  know  nothing  of  art.  I 
could  not  draw  a  straight  line  if  I  tried."  Granted, 
but  does  art  consist  merely  in  being  able  to  draw 
a  straight  line,  or  a  curved  one,  for  the  matter  of 
that?  Or  is  the  vivid  coloring  of  school  chil- 
dren's masterpieces  proudly  exhibited  at  the  end 
of  the  year  to  be  called  **art"  ?  If  so,  truly  there 
is  no  hope  for  the  average  mother  to  teach  this 
to  her  children. 

Do  you  need  such  directions  as  this,  quoted 
from  the  first  book  of  a  really  excellent  series  on 
art? 

On  moist  paper  paint  the  blue  sky  half-way  down. 
Before  it  is  dry  dip  your  brush  in  blue  and  yellow, 
and  paint  the  far-off  trees.     Then  paint  the  grass. 

or  this,  which  is  infinitely  worse,  because  it  antici- 
pates the  child's  observation  of  natural  objects 
and  their  color: 

Paint  the  shape  of  the  pumpkin  on  dry  paper  with 
a  yellow  wash.     While  this  color  is    still   wet   add 
curved  strokes  of  red  from  top  to  bottom.     Paint  the 
stem  in  green. 
10 


136   EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT  HOME 

We  are  so  apt  to  associate  the  word  art  with 
the  useless  nice  accomplishments,  instead  of  with 
himian  contrivance  and  skill.  There  is  as  much 
true  art  in  setting  a  room  in  order  as  in  sketching 
an  apple-tree.  There  is  even  more,  for  the  setting 
of  a  room  in  order  is  a  piece  of  constructive  work 
— ^making  a  dress  or  making  a  loaf  of  bread  is 
constructive.  But  spreading  the  warm  colors  in 
irregular  blotches  over  soft-toned  paper  according 
to  directions  for  making  sunsets  is  not  art  nor 
science,  even  though  comparatively  well  done. 

All  of  this  leads  me  to  say  that  we  wrongly 
associate  the  idea  of  training  in  art  with  the 
notion  of  voluminous  instruction  and  practice  in 
the  use  of  water-colors,  oil-paints,  diluted  inks, 
the  production  of  marvelous  sunsets,  and  im- 
pressionistic drawings.  Much  of  what  is  called 
art  instruction  is  but  an  anemic  imitation,  quali- 
fying the  learner  to  pass  judgment  upon  things 
that  he  could  not  do  and  would  never  undertake. 
The  shoemaker  who  set  the  ancient  painter  right 
with  regard  to  some  mistakes  he  had  made  in 
the  shoe  of  one  of  his  figures  was  not  criticizing 
art,  but  was  making  use  of  his  perfect  knowledge 
of  shoemaking. 

Every  child  loves  to  draw,  and  should  be  per- 
mitted to  do  so,  learning  at  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, that  there  are  certain  things,  as  walls  and 
furniture,  upon  which  he  may  not  use  that  pen- 
cil, for  the  teaching  of  proper  relationships  is  a 
part  of  the  training  in  art.     Give  him  a  thick  pen- 


WRITING  AND  DRAWING  137 

cil  or  crayon  in  order  to  avoid  cramping  of  the 
fingers.  His  first  drawings  will  be  horizontal  and 
vertical  lines  connected.  To  him  they  may  repre- 
sent a  whole  menagerie.  As  a  first  exercise  he 
may  learn  to  print  large  letters  like  the  alphabet 
on  his  blocks.  Some  may  question  the  value  of 
teaching  a  child  to  print;  but  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  future  utility  and  of  a  child's  eager- 
ness to  do  this,  it  hardly  seems  wasted  time. 

Drawing  to  the  child  is  good  employment  and 
recreation — a  good  time  to  let  him  alone  and  see 
what  comes  of  his  self-activity.  Then  give  him 
simple  tools — pencil,  rounded  scissors,  and  jack- 
knife.  For  the  child  to  cut  from  printed  paper 
models  his  toys,  dolls,  house-forms,  etc.,  is  fairly 
good,  as  it  exercises  the  eye  and  the  fingers;  but 
how  much  better  is  it  for  him  to  outline  the 
forms  himself,  and  cut  them,  giving  him  the  right 
to  call  them  truly  his  own ! 

Far  more  freedom  will  be  allotted  the  drawing, 
not  only  freedom  of  action,  but  freedom  from  di- 
rections at  every  step.  The  child's  unhampered 
drawing  leads  him  onward,  outward,  upward.  It 
brings  out  the  inward  child  as  writing  never  can. 
The  writing-lessons  are  set — there  is  little  free- 
dom for  originality — ^it  is  muscle-training,  nerve- 
training.  To  be  able  to  draw  means  to  be  able 
to  express  yourself  clearly  in  the  one  universal 
language.  As  a  form  of  self-expression  drawing 
holds  an  important  place  in  mental  development. 
As  a  means  of  conveying  ideas,  if  for  no  other 


138  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

reason,  it  may  well  hold  an  honorable  place  in 
education. 

For  a  long  time  the  child  will  represent  objects 
by  vertical  and  horizontal  lines.  Then  he  begins 
to  observe  a  little  the  form  which  he  represents 
by  outlines.  Within  his  reach  is  an  inexhaustible 
supply  of  natural  objects  to  examine  as  to  form, 
color,  and  appearance,  then  to  picture  in  his  crude 
but  satisfying  fashion,  a  potato,  an  eggy  a  leaf, 
a  cat-tail,  a  blade  of  grass,  vegetable  forms,  a  tree 
without  foliage.  He  may  outline  the  scissors, 
knife,  fork,  spoon.  Then  come  such  forms  as  a 
candlestick,  tea-kettle,  tea-pot,  a  carrot,  rail 
fence,  butterfly,  a  swallow  in  flight,  or  dozens  of 
them;  a  rabbit,  chair,  and  house  represented  by 
straight  lines.  He  may  trace  the  outline  of  a 
leaf,  then  fill  in  midrib  and  veins.  He  will  re- 
joice in  outlining  a  sail-boat,  picket  fence,  kites, 
well-sweep,  pimip,  and  gate. 

Rightly  employed,  drawing  may  be  one  of  the 
most  profitable  adjuncts  of  education.  It  is 
most  valuable  when  illustrative  of  other  branches, 
and  is  a  powerful  aid  in  training  the  habit  of 
observation. 


HOW  TO   TEACH   OBSERVATION 

*'  C  YES  have  you,  but  you  see  not;  ears  have 
JL-^  you,  but  you  hear  not/'  This  kindly  warn- 
ing of  the  Great  Master  is  timely  when  applied 
to  the  present  generation,  as  it  was  two  thousand 
years  ago. 

Most  difficulties  which  crop  up  and  grow  in 
the  school  career  of  a  child  can  be  traced  back 
to  Not  Seeing  and  Not  Hearing,  to  the  lack  of 
Observation. 

Not  long  ago  a  normal-school  instructor,  him- 
self the  author  of  one  of  the  best  text-books  used 
in  the  public  schools,  visited  an  experimental 
school  and  was  present  at  an  arithmetic  lesson. 
When  he  left  he  said:  *'  You  certainly  teach  arith- 
metic as  it  ought  to  be  taught.  You  insist  first 
of  all  that  your  pupils  clearly  understand  what 
they  hear  and  read  when  a  problem  is  given  them 
to  solve.  And  therefore  they  find  no  real  diffi- 
culties. You  are  teaching  them  to  see  and  hear. 
My  pupils,  young  men  and  women,  mostly  high- 
school  graduates,  have  never  learned  to  use  their 
eyes  and  ears.    They  cannot  read.     If  you  give 


I40  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

them  fractions  to  add  they  will  add  the  numera- 
tors; if  you  set  them  to  multiply  fractions  they 
will  multiply  the  nimierators;  and  so  on  with 
every  simple  arithmetical  operation.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  teach  them.  And  they  are  to  be 
let  loose  as  teachers  of  the  coming  generation." 
The  readers  of  this  book  will  therefore  under- 
stand, and  perhaps  kindly  appreciate,  that  the 
writer,  considering  the  gravity  of  the  subject,  ap- 
plied to  that  well-known  biologist,  Prof.  George  H. 
Hudson,  and  asked  him  to  help  in  writing  this 
chapter  to  the  book.  He  consented.  What  he 
wrote  follows,  and  is  acknowledged  with  many 
sincere  thanks  and  the  highest  appreciation. 

*'  Why  do  so  many  people  characterize  a  child 
as  *  all  ears  and  eyes '  ?  Why  do  we  so  frequently 
utter  the  command, '  You  must  not  touch  that '  ? 
The  psychologist  answers  these  questions  by  call- 
ing our  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  senses  are 
the  only  avenues  through  which  the  mind  can 
receive  those  stimuli  which  are  essential  to  its 
development ;  they  are  the  tentacles,  so  to  speak, 
and  the  only  ones,  with  which  the  child  can  lay 
hold  of  and  attend  to  the  outside  world.  How 
important  a  part  may  be  played  by  a  single  sense 
like  that  of  touch  is  well  shown  by  its  use  in 
awakening  and  developing  the  mind  of  Helen 
Keller.  If  the  senses  are  the  only  gates  to  the 
mind  it  must  follow  that  the  clearness,  accuracy, 
and    fullness    of    our    knowledge    must    depend 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION       141 

primarily  upon  the  perfection  of  the  receiving- 
avenues.  The  child's  activity,  then,  is  simply  a 
manifestation  of  Nature's  way  of  taking  the  first 
and  fundamental  steps  in  its  education. 

**  Many  parents  are  content  to  let  Nature  work 
unaided  in  this  matter;  but  as  certainly  as  we 
may  assist  her  in  securing  a  better  muscular  de- 
velopment through  supervision  and  encourage- 
ment of  proper  exercise,  just  so  certainly  we  may 
aid  her  in  securing  a  higher  and  more  perfect 
sense  development.  Well-directed  sense-training 
for  the  first  ten  years  of  a  child's  life  will  then 
wonderfully  enhance  its  power  to  discern  and 
discriminate.  The  child  possessing  the  keener 
and  better-developed  senses  will,  other  things 
being  equal,  become  the  more  intelligent,  the  hap- 
pier, and  the  better-equipped  citizen. 

**  Intelligent  sense-training  is  thus  one  of  the 
most  fundamental  or  basic  problems  in  education. 
It  deals  particularly  with  what  we  may  call  the 
physical  or  animal  aspect  of  development,  and  it 
may  and  should  begin  in  earliest  infancy.  It  is 
thus  in  its  very  nature  the  work  of  the  home,  and 
it  should  be  continued  through  all  the  early  years 
of  school  life.  Its  key-words  are  Observation, 
Comparison,  and  Discrimination.  By  observa- 
tion we  do  not  mean  simply  seeing.  We  may  ob- 
serve through  taste,  touch,  smell,  sound,  tem- 
perature, or  muscular  tension.  All  these  separate 
gates  to  the  mind  should  receive  proper  and  ade- 
quate attention, 


142  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

'*  As  a  matter  of  fact,  our  modern  civilization 
has  had  a  tendency  to  shut  out  the  normal  stimuli 
of  sense  development.  First,  our  opening  sentence 
is  indicative  of  a  tendency  to  repress  Nature's 
efforts,  and  this  for  the  purpose  of  personal  com- 
fort, or  because  of  fragile  and  costly  material 
which  the  child  might  injure.  Individual,  wealth 
in  unintelligent  hands  thus  tends  to  lay  the  foun- 
dation for  intellectual  decay.  Second,  the  four 
walls  of  a  room  exclude  the  varied  songs  of 
birds,  the  rustle  of  leaves,  the  music  of  brooks, 
and  a  thousand  varied  and  delicate  ways  in  which 
Nature  appeals  to  the  senses  of  higher  animals. 
The  same  walls  exclude  the  odor  of  balsam  and 
pine,  of  ferns  and  flowers,  and  even  of  the  fresh 
air  itself.  We  may  surround  the  child  with  colors, 
but  we  cannot  offer  the  changes  presented  by 
trembling  leaf,  nodding  flower,  or  moving  bird — 
by  cloud,  sunset,  or  starlight.  Uniform  steam 
heat  does  not  stimulate  the  skin  as  does  the  change 
from  sunshine  to  shadow,  and  vice  versa,  or  the 
kiss  of  a  breeze  on  hands  and  face.  Ab,  on  his 
bed  of  dry  leaves  in  the  open  forest,  was  better 
circimistanced  than  our  shut-in  infants.  We 
must  add  to  the  usable  variety  in  the  home, 
but  we  must  not  neglect  ovir  first  mother — the 
beautiful  and  wonderful  out  of  doors.  To  be 
shut  off  from  these  vast  spaces  and  this  benign 
influence  for  too  many  hours  either  in  home  or 
school  is  nothing  less  than  a  crime  against  health 
and  future  happiness.     A  little    reflection  con- 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION        143 

cerning  these  two  modern  tendencies  should  con- 
vince us  that  bur  increasing  interference  wdth 
Nature's  method  of  sense  development  is  both 
real  and  vital.  Here,  too,  we  are  introducing 
factors  that,  if  allowed  to  remain,  will  most  as- 
suredly lead  to  racial  deterioration.  It  is  not 
then  simply  a  question  as  to  whether  we  shall 
allow  Nature  to  use  her  method  alone  or  with 
intelligent  aid;  but  it  involves  also  the  question 
as  to  whether  or  not  we  shall  cease  our  uncon- 
scious but  dangerous  antagonism. 

"  Let  us  look  now  within  these  gates.  Through 
the  senses  the  brain  receives  images  that  are 
stored  in  memory  and  recalled  for  comparison 
with  other  similar  images.  We  thus  form  con- 
cepts and  gain  those  very  important  groups  known 
as  apperceptive  ideas.  In  other  words,  the  mind 
is  a  castle  of  many  rooms  which  may  only  be 
filled  through  experience,  but  the  rooms  them- 
selves and  the  avenues  to  them  are  determined 
by  heredity.  To  give  a  better  mental  inheritance 
after  birth  is  an  impossibility.  The  factor  of  in- 
heritance is  then  fixed — ^its  influence  will  persist 
through  life — yet  we  should  recognize  it  in  all  our 
efforts  at  education.  Whether  the  house  and  its 
avenues  be  good  or  bad,  we  have  control  of  the 
furnishing,  for  this  must  come  through  the  en- 
vironment, and  over  this  factor  we  have  almost 
unlimited  control.  The  awakening  mind  will  en- 
deavor to  select  images  for  use  in  its  thought- 
processes  that  its  inheritance  leads  it  to  demand. 


144  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

We  have  the  power,  however,  to  present  it  with 
images  that  will  lead  to  a  more  agreeable  furnish- 
ing. *What  shall  the  furnishings  be?'  is  then 
another  fundamental  question  in  education,  and 
this  furnishing  also  starts  with  the  very  first  use 
of  the  developing  senses. 

**  Again  w^e  must  depend  very  largely  on  the 
home  for  this  essential  portion  of  a  proper  mental 
equipment.  Again  also  the  time  spent  indoors, 
and  particularly  in  the  school-room,  involves  a  dis- 
tinct loss  in  percept-collecting,  and  without  this 
we  cannot  acquire  an  individual,  vivid,  and  varied 
imagery.  I  once  visited  a  school  whose  walls 
were  bare  and  whose  windows  had  the  lower  panes 
painted  to  prevent  the  children  from  looking  out 
of  doors.  A  bright  little  girl  had  a  single  ques- 
tion asked  her,  and  in  a  minute  it  was  answered. 
For  the  rest  of  that  period  she  heard  answers, 
good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  and  listened  to  words 
of  condemnation  or  praise.  There  was  an  insuf- 
ferable lack  of  ventilation,  a  marked  spirit  of  un- 
rest, and  a  desire  on  the  part  of  some  to  enliven 
the  proceedings  a  bit.  The  second  period  was 
like  unto  the  first,  and  this  *  valuable  discipline' 
was  probably  continued  day  after  day,  month 
after  month,  year  after  year.  Thus  this  child 
served  a  prison  sentence  in  a  graded  school.  She 
*  did  time '  as  certainly  as  any  convicted  criminal. 
The  result  was  a  deadened  mind  and  early  death 
by  consumption. 

**  The  school's  greatest  effort  is  to  develop  the 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION       145 

machinery  of  expression.  A  vast  amount  of  time 
is  spent  on  spelling,  grammar,  composition, 
rhetoric,  literature,  and  on  languages  other  than 
our  own.  The  child's  mind  has  been  filled  with 
choice  examples  of  how  to  express  himself,  but 
he  has  no  use  for  these  examples,  for  he  has  no 
beautiful  personal  imagery  to  express.  His  train- 
ing in  the  use  of  tools  was  at  the  expense  of  a  rich 
and  varied  individual  experience — his  material 
to  work  with  is  not  his  own  and  therefore  not 
vital.  Shakespeare  was  a  devoted  and  accurate 
observer  of  Nature  and  of  his  fellow-men.  He 
laid  in  a  wonderful  stock  of  vital,  personal  rec- 
ords, and  then  gave  expression  to  his  wealth  of 
mental  imagery.  This  vivid  imagery  was  not  the 
product  of  a  school.  On  the  other  hand,  our  vast- 
ly more  elaborate  system  of  training  for  ability 
to  express  thought  has  been  used  on  millions  of 
individuals,  but  has  not  produced  a  Shakespeare. 
Perhaps  that  is  not  to  be  expected,  but  we  might 
at  least  expect  the  development  of  equal  mental 
power.  It  is  just  possible  that  Lincoln  and 
Edison  and  others  became  really  great  because 
they  did  not  have  the  disadvantage  of  a  modern 
education. 

**To  neglect  to  store  the  mind,  through  per- 
sonal experience,  with  varied  and  vital  images  of 
its  own  is  a  very  serious  defect  in  school  education. 
Oiu*  children  may  devour  language,  but  they 
cannot  digest  it.  One  can  neither  impart  nor 
comprehend  anything  but  the  commonplace  un- 


146  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

less  he  has  a  wealth  of  stored  imagery.  Every 
teacher  of  English  gets  enough  incongruous  an- 
swers to  make  a  funny  though  really  pathetic 
book.  A  child  in  an  Adirondack  school  recently 
read,  *  It  was  a  moment  that  a  painter  might  have 
seized.'  A  visitor  asked:  *Did  you  ever  see  a 
painter?'  'Yes,  sir,'  replied  the  boy,  *my  father 
shot  one  last  winter.' 

**  It  should  be  the  aim  to  get  the  foundation 
material  for  mind  -  furnishing  through  personal 
observation  of  natural  objects  or  natural  phenom- 
ena. If  you  cannot  watch  the  opening  of  a 
real  sea -anemone  or  the  eruption  of  a  volcano 
it  will  be  wise  to  go  to  the  moving-picture.  Al- 
though not  real,  the  close  facsimile  will  give 
material  to  impart  to  a  friend  or  to  enable  the 
child  to  understand  the  written  description  of 
another.  We  but  express  organic  law  when  we 
say  that  the  development  of  the  mind  is  in 

DIRECT  proportion  TO  THE  VARIETY  OF  ITS  REGIS- 
TERED AND  CLASSIFIED  PERCEPTS.  The  two  great 
fundamentals  of  mind  development,  then,  are 
educated  senses  and  a  furnishing  of  vivid,  per- 
sonally acquired,  true,  and  basal  ideas  concerning 
the  environment.  The  only  possible  means  of 
securing  these  things  is  through  observation  as 
herebefore  defined. 

"What  I  may  call  the  third  fundamental  in 
education  consists  in  training  the  power  to  ex- 
press, and  the  cultivation  of  this  power  also  be- 
gins with  the  home  and  the  cradle.     We  cannot 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION        147 

here,  nor  need  we,  emphasize  the  various  forms 
through  which  expression  may  be  developed.  A 
vocabulary  is,  however,  one  of  the  essentials,  and 
we  may  briefly  point  out  its  use  as  an  aid  in  ob- 
servation. If  we  desire  a  child  to  see  more  in  a 
flower  than  mere  surface,  form,  color,  or  odor  we 
must  reveal  the  pleasures  of  more  careful  or  pur- 
poseful observation.  Suppose  we  give  the  word 
*  stamen*  to  use  in  the  description  of  a  part, 
and  follow  this  after  some  days  with  'anther' 
and  'pollen.*  Some  other  day  we  may  go  out 
to  see  in  how  many  places  in  garden  or  field  we 
may  find  stamens.  Lead  to  the  child's  discovery 
of  stamens  on  the  elms  and  maples  in  early  spring 
and  on  the  grasses  and  plantains  in  summer. 
In  a  class  of  high-school  graduates  I  have  some- 
times found  that  but  one  in  thirty  knew  that 
pussy-willows  were  clusters  of  flowers  possessing 
stamens.  The  words  given  are  enough  of  the 
flower  vocabulary  to  last  for  a  year  unless  the 
child  asks  for  other  names.  This  same  year  we 
may  plant  seeds  and  watch  their  sprouting  and 
growth.  During  the  second  year  we  could  hunt 
for  baby  seeds.  Where  do  you  find  them.? 
Always  in  an  'ovary.'  This  is  a  new  word,  and 
if  desired  the  terms  'style'  and  'stigma'  may 
be  added.  Where  in  the  flower  is  the  ovary? 
Are  those  of  all  blossoms  alike  in  form  ?  There  is 
no  need  for  hurry  in  this  vocabtilary,  but  it  will 
lead  to  more  careful  observation  and  discrimina- 
tion, and  also    allow  the  child  to  talk  intelli- 


148  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  PIOME 

gently  about  the  flowers  of  the  neighborhood. 
Go  over  the  whole  field  of  yotir  environment. 

**  Let  the  child  see  something  of  the  heavens  on 
still,  clear  nights.  Learn  the  names  of  a  number 
of  conspicuous  constellations.  Not  ten  per  cent, 
of  our  recent  high -school  graduates  over  the 
whole  land  know  even  what  the  'milky  way'  is. 
Let  the  child  find  out  through  observation  if 
the  Big  Dipper  shifts  its  position.  A  high-school 
graduate  recently  discovered  it  upside  down,  but 
insisted  that  at  her  home  it  was  always  right  side 
up,  and  wrote  to  her  father  for  proof.  If  one  has 
never  contemplated  the  starry  heavens  on  a  clear 
night  how  can  he  grasp  the  thought  of  the 
Psalmist  in,  '  When  I  consider  Thy  heavens,  the 
work  of  Thy  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars, 
which  Thou  hast  ordained;  what  is  man,  that 
Thou  art  mindful  of  him?*  See  if  the  moon  keeps 
the  same  star  neighbors  on  successive  days. 
What  is  the  direction  of  her  movement  through 
the  stars?  Where  is  the  sun  when  the  moon  is 
full,  and  where  when  she  is  new  ?  Do  not  answer 
the  question  for  the  child;  train  him  to  investi- 
gate and  discover. 

"  Our  observational  work  must  not  neglect  the 
sky  by  day.  If  a  fixed  vertical  post  is  convenient- 
ly situated  let  the  child  measure,  and  record  on  a 
calendar,  the  length  of  its  shadow  about  once  in 
two  weeks,  and  beginning  some  time  in  March 
or  April.  On  the  following  March  give  him  the 
problem  of  discovering  the  days  of  the  year  when 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION       149 

tliis  shadow  is  longest  and  when  shortest.  After- 
ward consult  an  almanac  with  him  and  see  how 
nearly  correct  was  his  determination.  These  are 
the  tiiming-points  in  the  sun's  apparent  north- 
ward or  southward  motion.  At  them  the  *sun 
stands/  hence  'solstice.'  Give  him  the  name 
when  convenient  or  perhaps  after  he  has  found 
the  summer  solstice.  If  he  is  told  his  error,  in 
days,  at  this  time,  he  will  try  to  make  his  deter- 
mination of  the  winter  solstice  more  accurate. 

"What  changes  in  the  air  are  brought  about 
by  north  or  south  winds?  Personify  the  winds. 
How  do  their  characters  differ?  When  fairly 
well  tmderstood  read  some  of  the  personifications 
foimd  in  good  literature. 

**  Take  the  whole  field  of  nature.  Visit  an  out- 
crop of  rock  and  see  if  the  discovery  as  to  how 
soil  is  formed  may  be  made.  Can  you  find  fossils 
in  the  neighborhood?  What  does  running  water 
do?  Find  miniature  land  forms,  cations,  and 
deltas  in  their  making.  Aim  to  know  something 
of  the  herbs  and  trees,  the  birds  and  insects  in- 
habiting the  territory  aroimd  home. 

*'  We  may  recapitulate  the  aims  of  this  obser- 
vational work  as  follows: 

**  The  development  and  training  of  the  senses. 

**  The  collection  of  a  wealth  of  true  and  vivid 
imagery. 

"The  acquisition  of  a  vocabulary  of  use  in 
learning  about  the  things  around  us,  and  a  de- 
velopment of  the  power  to  express  our  ideas. 


ISO  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

**  But  this  is  not  all  that  we  have  gained.  In 
this  work  we  have  come  to  make  a  more  intimate 
acquaintance  with  our  environment;  we  have 
gained  knowledge  of  great  and  lasting  worth; 
we  have  been  led  to  appreciate  and  love  the  com- 
munion with  nature;  we  have  secured  a  whole- 
some measure  of  contentment ;  and  we  have  done 
much  toward  developing  a  personality  greatly 
to  be  desired." 

The  wisdom  of  Dr.  Hudson's  remarks  is  man- 
ifest. Yet,  the  mother  back  in  the  country  on  a 
farm,  in  the  woods,  is  prone  to  think :  **  If  we  could 
only  liv  e  in  the  city  where  my  children  could  have 
the  advantages  of  a  good  school!"  Of  her  own  re- 
flection she  shotdd  be  able  to  discover  how  for- 
tunate are  those  who  spend  their  childhood  far 
from  the  big,  highly  organized  school.  Not  only 
have  they  the  negative  advantage  of  safe  distance 
from  the  rattle  of  school  machinery,  but  the  posi- 
tive blessing  of  opportunity  to  learn  from  Nature's 
self.  If  one  would  but  attend  the  school  of  the 
woods,  the  college  of  field  and  orchard,  the  uni- 
versity of  the  farm — ^attend  with  the  desire  to 
extract  therefrom  the  fullest  lessons — he  would 
know  the  beauty  of  intellectual  health,  he  would 
gain  therefrom  the  rugged  virility  and  power,  the 
originality  and  independence  which  are  Natvire's 
own  certificates  of  promotion,  not  to  be  acquired 
in  any  more  conventional  surroundings,  and  not 
to  be  counterfeited  by  any  amount  of  so-called 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION        151 

*' nature  study"  carried  on  in  crowded  class-rooms 
under  the  direction  of  a  teacher  only  one  degree 
less  ignorant  of  her  subject  than  is  her  class. 

It  is  this  sort  of  exotic  training  in  our  over- 
crowded schools  which  tends  to  produce  the  city 
child  who  does  not  know  that  there  is  a  difference 
between  a  rock  and  a  mountain ;  whose  knowledge 
of  forestry  is  limited  to  the  impression  that  all 
trees  can  be  divided  into  two  great  classes — either 
they  are  Christmas  trees  or  they  are  not  Christ- 
mas trees;  who  will  ask  you  whether  rivers  flow 
into  the  ocean  or  the  ocean  into  the  rivers;  who 
thinks  mountains  resemble  eyebrows,  because 
they  look  that  way  on  the  map ;  who  would  hesi- 
tate to  say  whether  a  partridge  is  a  biped  or  an 
amphibian. 

Primitive  men  walk  through  a  world  with  eyes 
trained  to  read  the  faintest  signs  and  with  ears 
attuned  to  the  slightest  sound.  Children  are 
very  clovse  to  their  savage  ancestors.  A  child's 
senses  are  not  dulled  by  disuse  and  misuse.  Many 
parents  are  content  to  let  Nature  work  unaided 
in  this  training  instead  of  assisting  her  to  secure 
a  higher  and  more  perfect  sense  development. 
Observation  cultivates  interest  and  alertness 
and  brings  about  the  ability  to  measure,  to  con- 
trast. It  is  the  forerunner  of  reflection  and  judg- 
ment, the  qualities  of  a  mature  mind. 

A  child  has  an  ardent  curiosity  and  a  love  of 
experimental  inquiry.  Compare  for  a  moment 
the  knowledge  and  information  that  we  can  ob- 
11 


152   EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

tain  through  observation,  with  the  indispensable 
information  that  can  be  found  only  in  books, 
and  you  get  a  better  idea  of  the  value  of  training 
the  observational  powers. 

Just  think  of  all  a  baby  has  to  achieve,  and  in 
so  short  a  time !  The  use  of  his  limbs  involves  a 
vast  and  complicated  series  of  mechanical  prob- 
lems. He  has  to  become  acquainted  with  dan- 
gers and  how  to  avoid  them;  with  difficulties 
and  how  to  overcome  them.  He  reads  faces 
long  before  he  dreams  of  reading  books.  He 
rapidly  acquires  a  new  language,  and  with  such 
subtle  touches  of  idiom  that  he  can  never  hope 
to  learn  another  language  quite  so  thoroughly. 
Then  he  has  to  make  acquaintance  with  a  world 
as  new  to  him  as  it  once  was  strange  and  new  to 
Adam.  He  must  become  acquainted  with  the 
animals  and  give  each  a  name.  The  sun,  the 
moon,  the  stars,  the  green  old  hills — all  different 
from  one  another — ^the  trees,  the  flowers — all 
these  are  portrayed  so  accurately  that  when  other 
later  pictures  have  faded  and  vanished  these  first 
ones  return  with  the  early  freshness  still  un- 
dimmed. 

How  very  few  great  men  have  spent  their 
early  boyhood  in  a  city  flat!  To-day's  men  of 
achievement  were  fifty  years  ago  boys  on  the 
farm,  and  in  their  declining  days  they  go  back 
to  the  ancient  woods  with  rod  and  reel,  pipe  and 
book,  to  again  taste  the  happiness  of  serene  re- 
pose.    Many  of  the  lessons  handed  down  from 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION       153 

the  ancients,  and  vulgarly  considered  mere  fables, 
are  beautiful  allegorical  expressions  of  great  and 
vital  truths.  Among  them  there  is  none  more 
instructive  than  the  legend  of  Antseus.  Sprung 
from  the  earth,  as  we  all  are,  he  was  invincible 
so  long  as  he  remained  in  contact  with  the 
Primal  Mother;  but  being  separated  from  the 
source  of  strength,  he  was  subdued  and  slain. 
Now  the  Hercules  that  strangles  us  takes  many 
names  and  forms;  but  the  process  is  the  same. 
He  separates  us  from  the  earth;  that  is,  he  de- 
prives us  of  communion  with  nature,  which  com- 
mimion  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  building 
up  a  vigorous  manhood  and  also  gives  us  many 
of  oiu*  purest  pleasures. 

The  love  of  nature  is  deep  and  ineradicable  in 
the  normal  htiman  heart,  and  the  child  who  has 
never  known  the  ministering  care  of  that  great 
parent,  is,  in  a  measure,  robbed  of  its  birthright, 
which  would  have  enabled  it  to  build  up  a  noble 
life. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  of  earthly 
changes,  but  these  changes  are  only  apparent  or 
imaginary.  Individuals  change;  but  the  race 
remains,  and,  above  all,  the  laws  of  development 
are  unchangeable.  We  do  not  grow  oaks  in  hot- 
beds or  flower-pots;  nor  need  we  expect  to  see 
the  highest  t3^es  of  manhood  or  womanhood 
produced  in  modem  society. 

It  was  in  the  desert  that  the  patriarch  had  the 
vision  of  angels  keeping  the  communication  be- 


154  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

tween  earth  and  heaven.  In  the  wilderness  may 
still  be  found  the  angels  of  health,  peace,  and 
contentment. 

The  main  cause  of  regret  is  not  that  the  child's 
stock  of  information  is  so  woefully  limited.  Lack 
of  knowledge  is  less  to  be  deplored  than  lack  of 
feeling.  We  go  to  Nature  less  to  learn  than  to 
absorb.  We  go  for  enjoyment  and  companion- 
ship. .Nature  meets  us  half-way  and  takes  a  hold 
upon  us  that  lightens  the  dull,  dragging  hours  of 
later  imprisonment  within  stupid  walls.  In 
speaking  of  his  delightful  essays  Wake-Robin, 
John  Burroughs  says: 

**I  wrote  this  book  sitting  at  a  desk  in  front 
of  an  iron  wall.  I  was  the  keeper  of  a  vault  in 
which  many  millions  of  bank-notes  were  stored. 
During  my  long  periods  of  leisure  I  took  refuge 
in  my  pen.  How  my  mind  reacted  from  the  iron 
wall  in  front  of  me  and  sought  solace  in  memories 
of  the  birds  and  of  the  simmier  fields  and  woods!'* 

He  took  refuge  from  his  long  periods  of  leisure ! 

Not  every  child,  indeed,  can  live  among  such 
scenes  as  Wake-Robin,  but  in  this  day  of  rapid  and 
cheap  transportation  it  is  possible  for  nearly  every 
child  to  be  trained  to  see  and  to  enjoy  nature  at 
first  hand.  First,  there  are  the  city  parks.  Again, 
the  money  thrown  away  on  picture  shows  would 
take  mother  and  children  for  an  afternoon  trip 
to  the  near-by  country.  Do  you  not  sincerely 
pity  the  boy  who  has  never  cut  his  own  fishing- 
rod,  set  a  trap,  or  found  a  bird's  nest?   or  who 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION        155 

needs  to  ask,  What  is  a  babbling  brook?  and  who 
does  not  know  of  his  own  seeing  of  *'the  nishing 
of  great  rivers"? 

There  was  culture  before  there  were  books,  and 
education  should  first  aim  at  culture.  Mere  book 
knowledge  is  not  culture,  nor  will  it  produce  cul- 
ture. Not  only  does  home  training  prepare  the 
child  for  useful  life  and  good  citizenship,  but  it 
gives  it  a  working  knowledge  that  opens  the  door 
of  imderstanding  to  academic  subjects.  For  in- 
stance, while  the  girl  beats  the  eggs  and  you  an- 
swer her  questions  she  gets  a  practical  chapter 
in  organic  chemistry.  Washing  dishes  with  her 
mother  as  a  teacher  she  finds  out  the  properties 
of  water,  the  hardness  and  softness;  the  actions 
of  acids  and  alkalis  as  combined  in  soap;  the 
effect  of  heat  and  cold  on  certain  bodies.  Was 
there  ever  a  better  laboratory  than  the  kitchen  to 
teach  a  girl  all  she  need  know  about  chemistry? 
She  learns  about  mould,  mildew,  rust,  fermenta- 
tion, freezing  mixtures,  temperatures,  salt,  and 
baking-soda.  She  learns  of  what  materials  dif- 
ferent utensils  are  made,  and  how  and  why  that 
material  is  used.  Here  are  more  of  the  things 
a  child  can  learn  from  you  or  with  your  help  in 
the  kitchen:  food-stuffs,  their  constituents  and 
where  they  come  from;  the  making  and  uses  of 
glass,  pottery,  iron,  steel,  brass,  nickel,  silver. 
Using  the  garden  hose  teaches  the  pressure  of 
water.  The  child  learns  as  it  helps  at  home 
about  coal,  metals,  alloys,  coins,  clouds,  rain, 


156  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

snow,  ice,  springs,  brooks,  lakes,  wells,  canals, 
sea-water,  salt,  winds,  storms,  familiar  animals 
and  plants.  A  child  who  learns  these  and  related 
things  and  uses  his  eyes  may  later  on  really  get 
something  worth  while  from  a  high-school  course 
in  chemistry  and  physics,  because  he  knows  what 
the  book  and  the  instructor  are  talking  about, 
while  the  student  without  this  home  training  does 
no  more  than  get  through  the  examination.  The 
making  of  useful,  thinking,  worthy  citizens  de- 
pends upon  the  early  teaching  of  the  humble  facts 
and  duties  of  every-day  life.  The  one  great  ques- 
tion in  a  child's  mind  is  *  *  What  ? ' '  The  importance 
of  "How?"  and  "Why?"  should  also  be  firmly 
impressed.  The  habit  of  finding  the  answers  to 
these  three  questions  constitutes  the  training  in 
observation. 

Without  a  consistent  preliminary  training  in 
observation,  in  the  study  of  Nature,  and  the  in- 
cidental learning  of  the  facts  met  in  every  day's 
life,  the  beginners  in  laboratory  or  science  classes 
find  themselves  embarrassed  and  confused  before 
a  striking  array  of  information  and  detail,  each 
part  of  which  is  simple  enough  in  itself,  but  yet 
so  interwoven  with  other  information  and  related 
detail  as  to  present  a  solid  wall  of  complexity. 
The  most  necessary  condition  for  the  solution 
of  a  problem,  the  understanding  of  the  data,  is 
lacking. 

Let  us  take  the  study  of  botany  as  another 
example.    Here  is  a  class  of  high-school  or  col- 


HOW  TO  TEACH  OBSERVATION        157 

lege  students,  well  advanced  in  their  teens  and 
passa.bly  intelligent.  If  they  are  given  to  study 
a  chapter  on  the  parts  of  a  plant,  to  many  of 
them  nearly  every  technical  term  used  in  the  as- 
signment is  new  and  strange.  Nothing  seems  to 
have  a  bearing  upon  anything  else.  How  do  they 
study  that  lesson?  By  a  muscular  effort,  repeat- 
ing over  and  over  each  definition  and  description, 
word  for  word,  and  holding  the  collection  of  facts 
securely  in  their  memories  until  the  desired  op- 
portimity  of  committing  what  they  have  mem- 
orized to  a  test  paper. 

Now  consider  the  student  who  has  learned  to 
observe  and  trained  himself  to  notice  weeds  and 
flowers.  The  assigned  page  is  a  delight  to  a 
student  of  this  kind.  The  definitions  are  no 
longer  meaningless,  since  in  another  style  and 
phrasing  they  tell  him  what  he  has  known  and 
thought  before.  Does  he  passively  set  about 
committing  to  memory  the  words  of  the  text? 
Never.  He  does  more.  He  give  their  meaning, 
their  relationships  to  other  definitions;  he  puts 
interest  and  vitality  into  the  work.  He  proves 
again  and  again  that  he  who  brings  something 
to  the  book  is  the  one  who  gets  something  out 
of  it.  He  shows  the  maturity  of  mind  that 
comes  from  long  thinking.  Because  he  has 
thought,  he  is  able  to  face  a  complex  assignment, 
whereas  the  beginner  must  deal  with  the  single 
idea,  which  is  the  primitive  basis.  The  boy  or 
girl  who  has  been  taught  to  use  eyes  and  ears 


158  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

is  admirably  fitted  for  scientific  studies.  Sci- 
ence is  based  on  facts.  Research  does  no  more 
than  classify  or  arrange  in  an  orderly  manner 
certain  facts  so  that  conclusions  may  be  drawn. 
These  conclusions  are  again  and  again  tested  by 
facts  until  research  becomes  science.  The  boy 
whose  early  life  has  been  observant  has  the  basis 
of  facts  and  the  skill  in  drawing  conclusions 
needed  by  science.  Such  a  boy  meets  with  no 
difficulty  in  studying  mathematics,  astronomy, 
physics,  or  chemistry. 


XI 

HOW    TO    EVOLVE    THE    WORK    HABIT 

HAST  thou  seen  a  man  diligent  at  his  work? 
He  shall  stand  before  kings." 

Since  Paradise  was  lost  to  man  it  has  been  his 
destiny  on  earth  to  work.  Education,  therefore, 
means  preparation  and  training  for  work.  With- 
out it  man  is  not  fit  to  live. 

All  must  needs  be  educated.  All  are  to  work. 
By  exertion  of  brain  or  sweat  of  brow  must  every 
child  of  Adam  gain  his  daily  bread  if  he  would 
have  it  palatable,  digestible,  and  nourishing.  In 
that  edict  even  he  who  delves  may  read  a  bless- 
ing, though  its  utterance  sounded  like  a  curse. 

Work  is  the  simplest  solution  of  the  problem 
of  himian  happiness.  An  all-wise  Providence  has 
ordered  that  otu:  highest  enjoyments  spring  from 
our  greatest  necessities;  and  all  other  joys  pale 
before  the  invigorating  glow  of  satisfaction  re- 
sulting from  the  honest  performance  of  otir  duties. 

Long,  laboriously  compiled  statistical  tables 
pretend  to  show  that  only  so  many  hours  of  work 
per  day  are  necessary  to  support  life.  As  if  to 
LIVE  meant  merely  to  exist,  and  mere  existence 


i6o  EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT  HOME 

were  the  end  of  life!  Why,  the  animals,  the 
reptiles,  the  insects,  all  live.  Shoiild  we,  the 
image  of  God,  be  satisfied  with  a  life  like  theirs? 
We  shoiild,  indeed,  without  the  chastening,  en- 
nobling power  of  work.  Toil  and  strife  are  the 
inalienable  conditions  of  life  on  this  earth;  and 
any  scheme  based  on  elimination  of  these  wotild 
terminate  all  manhood  worthy  of  the  name. 

Benjamin  Franklin  says  that  the  man  to  be 
envied  is  he  who  rolls  up  his  sleeves  and  goes 
singing  to  his  work.  To  gain  the  full  benefit  of 
our  labor  we  must  work;  not  merely  to  earn  a 
living,  but  in  order  that,  living,  we  may  accom- 
plish something,  may  become  co-workers  with 
the  Creator  instead  of  convicts  carrying  out  our 
sentence.  Even  the  panacea  of  four  hours,  two 
hours,  or  one  hour  a  day  would  still  be  working 
under  compulsion,  and  therefore  slavery. 

The  main  object  of  life  is  not  knowledge,  but 
work;  the  use  of  knowledge  is  to  enable  us  to 
work  intelligently  and  without  loss  of  time. 
Education,  to  be  of  use,  should  be  based  on  the 
same  plan  as  the  student's  future  life  must  be — 
work,  strive,  and  win.  Without  work  there  can 
be  neither  development  nor  progress.  We  do 
not  sufficiently  value  work  as  a  means  of  mental 
development.     Its  possibilities  are  inexhaustible. 

But  instead  of  associating  work  and  education 
we  are  apt  to  associate  and  consider  inseparable 
books  and  education,  so  that  unconsciously  we 
define  ignorance  as  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  the 


HOW  TO  EVOLVE  THE  WORK  HABIT  i6i 

few  things  about  which  we  ourselves  happen  to 
know  something.  Even  though  the  poor  grand- 
father has  long  practised  the  habits  of  right 
thinking  on  the  elementary  principles  of  human 
action,  and  right  acting  in  the  ordinary  relations 
of  himian  society,  yet  if  he  cannot  parse  his  way 
to  salvation  he  is  an  ignoramus  to  the  raw  mind 
of  youth. 

There  were  educated  men,  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  before  there  were  books.  Between  the 
mind  that  is  merely  a  storehouse  of  facts  and  the 
mind  well  trained  by  hard  work  and  hard  think- 
ing there  is  all  the  vast  difference  that  there  is 
between  a  ramshackle  furniture  shop  and  a  well- 
furnished  home. 

Lack  of  the  habit  of  work  breeds  dislike  of  work ; 
but  work  which  at  first  seems  a  burdensome  task 
in  course  of  time  becomes  a  pleasure.  To  make 
good  citizens  you  must  first  and  foremost  instil 
in  the  young  minds  a  respect  for  labor  and  create 
the  habit  of  work,  giving  the  work  experience 
early  enough  for  it  to  become  a  vital  part  of  their 
lives.  Then  your  children  will  not  take  their 
places  in  the  ranks  of  the  useless  learned  persons 
bringing  reproach  on  the  very  name  of  educa- 
tion. Nor  is  it  enough  to  teach  a  child  how  to 
perform  certain  tasks — ^that  is  a  simple  matter. 
He  must  be  made  to  work.  Instead  of  killing 
spontaneity  compulsion  prepares  for  spontaneity. 
What  an  effective  lesson  you  have  taught  when 
once  the  learner  grasps  the  meaning  of  the  old, 


i62  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

old  truth — that  habit  grows  from  repeated  acts, 
character  from  habit,  destiny  from  character; 
that  the  first  step  is  a  difficult  one,  that  con- 
tinued effort  brings  attainment,  and  that  every 
task  well  done  is  a  stepping-stone  to  higher  under- 
takings. These  world-old  truths  cannot  be  taught 
by  precept  merely,  but  must  be  wrought  into  the 
fiber  of  each  individual  by  the  actual  perform- 
ance of  physical  labor.  Deplorable  as  are  the 
evils  of  child  labor,  they  are  not  as  far-reaching 
and  destructive  as  the  evils  of  child  idleness. 

To  learn  from  books  is  all  very  well  in  its  time 
and  place,  but  that  time  comes  after  the  period 
of  learning  from  experience  and  example  has  well 
progressed.  In  dealing  with  young  children  it 
is  natural  and  logical  to  form  first  the  habit  of 
practical  work  and,  secondly,  that  of  sustained 
mental  exertion.  Thus  we  are  proceeding  from 
the  concrete  to  the  abstract,  from  the  known  to 
the  related  unknown.  All  ordinary  activities 
tend  to  improve  the  mind.  Moreover,  in  this 
day  of  abundant  literature  almost  any  child's 
natural  curiosity  will  lead  him  to  learn  to  read 
by  himself  if  only  some  one  will  answer  his  ques- 
tions as  to  letters,  words,  and  the  meaning  of 
words. 

Two  or  three  generations  ago,  when  the  home 
recognized  its  responsibilities  and  looked  upon  the 
school  merely  as  a  contributing  factor  in  furnish- 
ing instruction,  then  the  home  and  school  to- 
gether really  educated  and  produced  men  who 


HOW  TO  EVOLVE  THE  WORK  HABIT  163 

were  types,  with  mind  and  muscle  strengthened 
to  undertake  and  to  achieve.  Where  is  the  school 
that  provides  for  boy  or  girl  the  educational  ad- 
vantages of  the  full,  rich  individual  daily  pro- 
gram of  home  life  on  the  farm?  No  university 
course  can  equal  in  value  this  early  all-round 
education  without  vacation.  When  the  boy 
worked  side  by  side  with  his  father  in  the  field 
and  the  girl  did  her  share  of  the  housework  the 
problem  of  education  was  solved  thus  far  indi- 
vidually and  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  did  not 
come  up  for  constant  public  discussion.  The 
worker  at  home  was  rarely  the  shirk  at  school,  as 
school  was  then,  and  the  old-fashioned  teacher  did 
not  use  such  phrases  as  **lack  of  concentration,'* 
** eye-minded  instead  of  ear-minded,**  in  place 
of  the  more  direct,  if  less  euphonious,  *'The  child 
is  lazy,**  or  *'His  shiftless  parents  have  never 
taught  him  how  to  work.'* 

In  regard  to  the  value  of  work  to  the  individual 
there  can  be  no  dispute.  The  question  is,  How 
form  the  habit  of  work.? 

First,  we  must  take  account  of  the  child*s  dor- 
mant sense  of  responsibility  that  may  be  awak- 
ened by  the  mere  recognition  of  its  presence,  in 
order  that  the  period  of  helplessness  be  not  un- 
wisely prolonged. 

Secondly,  we  must  give  the  small  child  daily 
regular  tasks  suited  to  his  strength,  increasing 
them  with  his  ability  to  perform  them. 

To  be  sure,  there  is  nothing  novel  in  this,  but 


i64  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

there  is  not  much  novelty  in  a  world  as  old  as 
ours — not  much  that  is  both  novel  and  useful. 
The  most  satisfactory  pupils,  taken  all  in  all, 
come  from  homes  where  it  is  believed  that  every 
child  from  the  age  of  three  or  four  should  have 
suitable  daily  tasks  to  perform  regularly  and  well. 
The  Httle  child  should  dress  himself,  button  or 
lace  his  shoes,  hang  up  his  clothing  on  the  proper 
hooks,  turn  the  covers  of  his  bed  to  air,  put  away 
his  playthings  when  through  with  them,  run 
here  and  there  to  save  his  mother  steps  about 
the  house.  As  the  months  go  by  the  capacity 
for  work  increases  and  more  may  well  be  under- 
taken. The  beginner's  assignments  should  be 
simple,  for  failure  results  more  often  from  a  con- 
fused perception  of  the  thing  to  be  done  than 
from  inability  to  accomplish  what  is  required. 
There  is  something  gratifying  to  every  one  in  the 
feeling  that  he  is  able  to  do  each  day  something 
more  difficult  than  the  day  before.  To  teach  the 
child  how  to  work  and  to  rejoice  in  a  good  piece 
of  work,  to  make  every  day  a  little  fuller  and 
richer  than  the  day  before,  to  develop  the  child 
in  skill,  in  force,  in  self-control — these  are  among 
the  best  things  the  very  best  school  could  hope 
to  give,  yet  these  things  are  not  beyond  the  ken 
of  even  the  busiest  mother,  nor  are  they  difficult, 
except  in  so  far  as  patience  and  persistent  judi- 
cious attention  to  the  undertaking  are  difficult  for 
the  mother  herself.  The  problem  of  to-day  and 
to-morrow  is  the  problem  of  the  individual  child. 


HOW  TO  EVOLVE  THE  WORK  HABIT    165 

Many  a  mother  will  feel  that  she  is  doing  her 
full  duty  in  the  way  of  fostering  the  work  habit, 
and  will  say,  *'Now,  what  has  that  to  do  with 
the  more  complicated  problem  of  teaching  from 
books?"  Everything.  The  most  important  out- 
growth of  the  work  habit  is  the  power  of  concen- 
tration, which  is  the  great  fundamental  need  of 
scholarship.  The  habit  of  self-enforced  concen- 
tration may  be  developed  in  any  healthy  mind  if 
an  early  beginning  is  made.  In  itself  a  mighty 
conquest,  it  is  the  essential  basis  of  further  con- 
quest. As  the  power  of  concentration  is  the  first 
requisite  of  success,  it  is  also  the  safest  guarantee 
of  success.  The  factors  that  produce  and  the 
circumstance  that  develop  this  power  in  the  in- 
dividual render  a  school  unnecessary  to  that  in- 
dividual. Perhaps  the  greatest  good  that  can 
be  derived  from  a  college  training  is  the  ability 
to  intensify  effort  and  prolong  endeavor.  But 
should  not  the  cultivation  of  these  valuable  and 
all-important  traits  be  begun  before  the  period 
of  college  life?  Not  only  is  this  accomplished 
with  far  more  ease  and  certainty  at  the  age  of 
seven  than  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  but  its  early 
acquisition  is  the  only  assurance  against  waste 
of  time  and  failure  of  achievement.  The  student 
who  waits  until  he  reaches  college  to  learn  how 
to  work  generally  misses  his  aim.  The  right  time 
to  learn  how  to  study  is  in  the  very  beginning. 
The  right  way  of  doing  so  is  to  meet  difficulties 
and  conquer  them  by  overcoming  one  at  a  time, 


i66   EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

and  the  simplest  at  the  outset.  A  college  diploma 
is  of  less  value  than  the  habit,  the  knowledge,  the 
power  ' '  how  to  study. ' '  How  often  will  a  student 
in  a  preparatory  or  normal  school  take  a  text- 
book in  mathematics  or  science  or  history  and 
puzzle  vainly  over  it  by  the  hour,  then,  failing  to 
get  any  sense  out  of  it,  simply  labor  to  commit 
to  memory  the  whole  lesson,  though  not  under- 
standing it.  On  the  contrary,  the  student  who 
has  had  the  training  that  begins  with  the  thought- 
fiil  performance  of  simple  duties,  such  as  laying 
one  stick  square  and  true  upon  another  until  the 
wood-pile  is  in  trim  shape,  making  one  stitch  and 
then  another  until  the  wash-rag  is  knitted — all 
concrete  tasks  that  can  be  measured  and  ap- 
praised with  the  child's  singleness  of  vision — ^is 
enabled  to  take  the  same  bothering  text-book, 
settle  himself  down  to  it,  and  say  to  himself: 
**This  book  is  written  neither  in  Hebrew  nor  in 
Choctaw;  these  are  English  words,  and  any  not 
familiar  to  me  I  shall  look  up  in  the  glossary. 
First  I  shall  master  the  first  sentence ;  that  done, 
I  shall  get  the  second;  then,  as  the  entire  topic 
is  made  up  of  so  many  sentences,  it  is  only  a  mat- 
ter of  perseverance  for  me  to  fit  the  sentences  to- 
gether, understand  the  context,  and  so  conquer 
the  whole." 

That  stock  phrase  of  the  schools,  **such  and 
such  a  pupil  cannot  concentrate,*'  when  applied 
to  a  normal  child,  means  one  of  two  things:  an 
indictment  of  the  home  that  has  failed  to  train 


HOW  TO  EVOLVE  THE  WORK  HABIT   167 

the  child  in  habits  of  work,  or  an  admission  that 
the  school  work  is  either  above  or  below  the  ca- 
pabilities of  the  child.  He  can  concentrate  and 
apply  energy  and  zeal  whenever  it  suits  him  to 
do  so  to  further  his  own  interests.  He  digs  a  cave 
in  the  sand  or  in  the  snow,  or  builds  a  snow  man, 
or  dissects  a  toy,  or  builds  with  his  blocks,  wholly 
absorbed  in  that  particular  endeavor  and  work- 
ing toward  its  completion.  No  dawdling  over 
it,  no  half-doing,  no  display  of  weariness  of  soul. 
You  watch  him  and  say  to  yourself:  '*  If  he  would 
only  work  as  hard  as  that  at  the  things  he  is  set 
to  at  school."  Unfortunately  for  all  concerned, 
he  has  not  learned  the  greatest  and  most  impor- 
tant lesson  of  all — to  do  exactly  what  he  is  told  to 
do.  If  a  boy  knows  that  when  he  is  told  to  fill 
the  wood -box  it  means  to  fill  the  wood-box;  if 
a  girl  knows  that  when  she  is  told  to  pick  a  cupful 
of  berries  it  means  to  pick  a  cupful,  not  a  half  a 
cupful,  that  boy  or  girl,  when  set  a  task  with 
books,  will  take  for  granted  that  they  are  to  do 
that  task,  not  sit  back  and  depend  upon  some  one 
to  help  them. 

In  the  matter  of  the  assignment  of  school  work 
nearly  all  are  working  beneath  their  strength. 
Real  work  for  a  single  hour  accomplishes  more  for 
the  student  than  the  five  or  six  hours  of  so-called 
study  constituting  a  school-day.  No  one  dis- 
putes that  a  small  child  can  learn  in  an  hour  all 
that  is  worth  while  in  the  course  that  is  now  dis- 
tributed over  five  tiring  consecutive  hours.  He 
12 


i68  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

spends  an  hour  with  a  book  open  before  him,  and 
takes  great  credit  to  himself  for  studying  a  whole 
hour,  when  in  truth  he  has  given  the  greater  part 
of  the  time  to  play,  dawdling  over  his  work,  en- 
joying neither  the  work  nor  the  play.  An  ambi- 
tion to  make  progress  keep  pace  with  the  passing- 
days  is  more  easily  aroused  in  the  beginner  than 
after  he  has  been  a  few  years  in  the  average  school. 
In  a  certain  experimental  school  the  teacher 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  work  being  done  by  a 
group  of  ten-year-old  boys.  They  spent  the  en- 
tire day  in  preparing  assignments  that  could  be 
mastered,  she  believed,  in  half  the  time.  One 
morning  she  told  this  class  if  they  could  get  their 
work  finished  before  the  usual  time,  three  o'clock, 
they  would  be  dismissed.  At  half  past  two  the 
boys  applied  for  permission  to  go  home  with  work 
completed.  The  next  morning  they  asked  if  that 
day  the  same  privilege  held  good,  and  on  receiv- 
ing this  assurance  fell  to  work  on  the  assign- 
ments, which  were  calculated  to  equal  in  diffi- 
culty the  preceding  day's  lessons.  On  this  second 
day  all  had  finished  the  work  by  two  o'clock, 
the  time  varying  from  ten  to  thirty  minutes, 
according  to  the  pupil.  On  the  following  morn- 
ing the  boys  propounded  this  question:  **If  we 
finish  our  work  in  the  forenoon,  may  we  stay 
away  from  school  this  afternoon?"  and  were  as- 
sured that  they  might  do  so.  Every  boy  finished 
his  work  before  the  noon  intermission.  Again 
on  the  fourth  morning  was  the  experiment  re- 


HOW  TO  EVOLVE  THE  WORK  HABIT    169 

peated,  with  the  result  that  the  slowest  of  this 
group  was  enabled  to  make  a  triumphant  de- 
parture by  eleven  o'clock. 

Then  a  strange  thing  happened.  When  school 
was  resimied  for  the  afternoon  these  boys  pre- 
sented themselves,  looking  rather  sheepish  at 
being  found  around  a  school-house  when  not 
compelled  to  appear,  and  explained  their  pres- 
ence by  saying,  **  There  was  nothing  doing  around 
home."  The  teacher  had  discovered  two  things: 
first,  these  boys  really  could  do  well  in  two  hours 
the  work  upon  which  they  had  been  spending 
five  hours;  second,  the  day  on  which  these  chil- 
dren had  learned  what  it  meant  to  work  to  the 
very  limit  of  their  capacity  was  the  day  on  which 
school  possessed  for  them  attractions  to  draw 
them  back. 


XII 

HOW  TO  TEACH  THE  RETARDED  CHILD 

IN  countries  where  public  instruction  has  been 
carried  on  for  centuries,  where  mature  experi- 
ence has  made  parents  and  teachers  wiser,  it  has 
become  a  well-estabHshed  and  recognized  fact 
that  there  must  be  a  certain  percentage  of  failures 
in  the  attempt  to  pass  the  growing  generation 
successfully  through  a  scholastic  system.  Such 
natural  and  irremediable  failures  we  can  only 
meet  with  the  question:  *'What  can  be  done  to 
enable  the  intellectually  handicapped  child  to  be- 
come a  useful  citizen,  and  what  is  the  teachable 
maximum?" 

Very  different,  and  sadly  different,  is  it  with  the 
poor  child  that,  though  naturally  well  equipped 
for  a  successful  school  course,  is  not  only  retarded, 
but  dulled  and  stunted  by  avoidable  hindrances 
and  checks  due  to  blighting  and  blasting  in- 
fluences of  home  and  school.  Here  the  only  effi- 
cient help  can  come  from  the  mother,  who,  realiz- 
ing her  grave  responsibility  and  bounden  duty, 
resolutely  takes  matters  into  her  own  hands  and 
remedies   what   has   been   spoiled   by   her   own 


THE  RETARDED  CHILD  171 

negligence  and  the  culpable  inefficiency  of  teacher 
and  school. 

The  following  instances,  taken  from  Swift's 
Mind  in  the  Making,  will  prove  to  her  that  she 
need  not  be  dismayed  in  facing  what  may  have 
seemed  to  her  a  hopeless  task,  and  give  her  hope, 
courage,  patience,  and  strength  to  accomplish  it 
successfully. 

The  great  Swedish  botanist,  Carl  Linnaeus,  who 
invented  that  wonderful  system  of  classifying 
plants,  so  impressed  the  directors  and  teachers  of 
the  ** gymnasium"  with  his  worthlessness  and 
backwardness  that  his  father  '*was  advised  to 
make  a  cobbler  of  him,  as  he  was  quite  unfit  for 
any  learned  profession.  Yet  all  the  time  the 
boy  was  lost  in  the  undergrowth  of  thoughts  which 
in  their  maturity  were  to  revolutionize  the  study 
of  botany." 

Charles  Darwin  **was  considered  a  very  ordi- 
nary boy,  rather  below  the  common  standard  of 
intellect." 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  **  showed  so  little  ability  that 
at  fifteen  he  was  taken  out  of  school  and  set  at 
work  upon  a  farm." 

'*  Robert  Fulton  was  a  dullard  because  his  mind 
was  filled  with  thoughts  about  other  things  than 
his  studies;  but  his  teachers  could  not  understand 
this,  and  so  the  birch-rod  became  a  frequent  per- 
suader." 

**  Alexander  von  Himiboldt  said  of  himself  '  that 
in  the  first  years  of  childhood  his  tutors  were 


172  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

doubtftd  whether  even  ordinary  powers  of  intelli- 
gence would  be  developed  in  him,  and  that  it  was 
only  later  in  boyhood  that  he  began  to  show  any 
evidence  of  mental  vigor.'* 

**The  hatred  of  Joseph  Banks,  the  English 
nattiralist,  for  the  monotony  of  school  routine 
was  so  marked  as  to  bring  complaint  from  his 
teachers.  Yet  it  was  not  dislike  for  work;  he 
simply  could  not  travel  the  road  by  which  alone 
the  educational  doctors  would  permit  him  to 
reach  the  golden  gate.'* 

**John  Hunter,  the  celebrated  anatomist  and 
surgeon,  is  reported  by  one  writer  to  have  been 
unable  to  read  or  write  at  seventeen  years  of 
age,  so  great  was  his  hatred  for  school.  In  his 
unappreciated  condition  of  learned  ignorance  he 
just  missed  becoming  a  cabinet-maker  through  the 
fortimate  failure  of  his  brother-in-law,  in  whose 
carpenter  shop  he  was  working." 

''Oliver  Goldsmith's  teacher,  in  his  early  child- 
hood, thought  him  one  of  the  dullest  boys  she 
had  ever  tried  to  teach.  She  said  he  was  *  im- 
penetrably stupid';  she  was  afraid  that  nothing 
could  be  done  for  him.  His  indolence  and  dis- 
like for  his  university  tutor,  who  called  him  igno- 
rant and  stupid  before  his  classmates,  combined 
to  make  him  hate  mathematics,  science,  and 
philosophy." 

'*  Henry  Ward  Beecher  at  ten  years  of  age,  ac- 
cording to  his  sister,  Mrs.  Stowe,  *was  a  poor 
writer,  a  miserable  speller,  with  a  thick  utterance, 


THE  RETARDED  CHILD  173 

and  a  bashful  reticence  which  seemed  like  stolid 
stupidity.  He  was  not  marked  by  the  prophecies 
even  of  partial  friends  for  any  brilliant  future. 
He  had  precisely  the  organization  which  often 
passes  for  dullness  in  early  boyhood.*'* 

*' Spencer's  native  antagonism  to  the  rote 
method  was  so  intense  that  it  prevented  him  from 
making  any  substantial  progress  during  his  school 
course  in  the  grammar  of  his  own  or  foreign 
languages.  His  mind  was  on  the  non-conforming 
sort,  as  indeed  all  superior  minds  are,  and  school 
organization  has  not  yet  been  sufficiently  per- 
fected to  take  them  into  accotmt." 

Did  you  ever  meet  the  boy  of  ten,  who  has 
been  in  school  the  last  four  years,  covering  no 
more  ground  than  he  might  have  done  in  six 
months,  who  has  been  placed  in  the  third  grade 
when  he  really  was  fit  only  for  the  first,  so  far 
as  the  quality  of  his  work  was  concerned?  He 
has  felt  unhappy  and  wretched  in  school,  and  has 
acquired  such  a  hatred  of  books  and  study  and 
school  and  teachers  that  his  case  seems  entirely 
hopeless.  His  temper  is  soured.  He  seems  to 
feel  that  if  he  is  only  hateful  enough,  and  can 
make  himself  disagreeable  enough,  the  teacher 
will  give  up  in  despair.  He  kicks  the  chairs, 
smashes  his  pencil  in  bits,  hides  his  book  so  as 
to  necessitate  loss  of  time  in  recovering  it. 

Under  a  special  plan  of  instruction  the  first  six 
months'  work  seems  productive  of  no  results  ex- 


174  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME       " 

cept  to  convince  him  that  the  prescribed  hour's 
work  has  to  be  attained  before  he  will  be  dis- 
missed, even  if  it  takes  four  hours,  as  it  frequently 
does.  The  latter  part  of  the  year  he  commences 
to  work,  makes  such  advancement  that  you  dare 
not  trust  your  senses,  qualifies  for  the  examina- 
tion, and  passes  the  public-school  test  admitting 
him  to  the  sixth  grade  the  coming  year.  His 
former  teachers  are  astounded  as  well  as  disdain- 
ful, but  take  him  into  the  grade,  prophesying, 
however,  that  he  will  only  be  demoted  at  the  end 
of  the  month,  as  he  will  never  be  able  to  keep  up. 
However,  his  work  is  never  quite  poor  enough  to 
warrant  his  demotion,  although  at  the  end  of  the 
year  he  is  retained  in  the  grade. 

Now,  the  boy  who  does  not  go  forward  is  un- 
questionably going  backward,  and  after  such  an 
experience  it  takes  a  long  time  to  enliven  any 
ambition. 

One  drawback  is  sometimes  a  limited  vocabu- 
lary. Sometimes  its  range  is  confined  to  sporting 
terms,  the  jargon  of  athletics,  and  the  slang  of 
the  street. 

His  imagination  may  be  weak.  Geography  and 
history,  then,  are  only  a  matter  of  words. 

But  intellect  and  mental  capacity  are  not 
gaged  by  school  standards,  just  as  school  stand- 
ards do  not  insure  a  standard  of  efficiency.  In 
the  Dishwashers'  Union  of  San  Francisco  one 
member  out  of  every  seven  is  said  to  be  a  college 
graduate.     Most   of  these   men   attribute   their 


THE  RETARDED   CHILD  175 

present  lowly  position  to  the  fact  that  their 
school  and  college  training  was  not  adequate  to 
their  requirements.  But  as  one  of  them  shrewdly 
observed:  ''Our  early  training  was  at  the  root 
of  it.  The  child  properly  trained  during  the  years 
when  parental  control  can  most  powerfully  as- 
sert itself  will  not  go  through  college  and  become 
a  dishwasher." 

Before  suggesting  how  to  treat  and  teach  the 
backward  or  retrograded  child  we  ought  to  an- 
alyze the  causes  of  such  backwardness  or  retro- 
gression. These  are  of  three  kinds:  Physical, 
mental,  and  local — i.  e.,  caused  by  unfavorable 
environment. 

The  physical  causes,  as  adenoids,  defective  eye- 
sight and  hearing,  anemia,  malnutrition,  and 
such  like,  can  only  be  dealt  with  by  a  physician, 
to  whose  attention  they  must  be  brought  by  the 
watchful  mother  or  teacher. 

The  mental  causes  are  principally:  Lack  of 
self-control,  lack  of  memory,  an  abnormally  slow 
process  of  mind-maturing,  complete  absorption 
in  some  line  of  thought  entirely  outside  of  the 
school  curricultim. 

Self-control,  the  principal  aim,  and — ^when 
achieved — the  triimiph  of  education,  includes  the 
habits  of  regular,  patient,  persevering  work  and 
of  concentration  at  will.  The  immature  mind  can 
hold  itself  to  the  one  thought  but  a  few  minutes. 
Then  it  gradually  learns  to  control  thought  as  it 
controls  muscles,  and  so  to  hold  the  mind  for  a 


176  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

longer  and  longer  period  to  the  one  set  task  as 
the  powers  of  the  mind  unfold.  By  false  mental 
training  this  power,  or  as  much  of  it  as  the  child 
has  acquired  at  play,  is  impaired.  Many  grown 
people  can  concentrate  only  at  play.  They  re- 
tain the  child  mind. 

With  many  a  new  pupil  the  teacher's  work  for 
weeks  and  months  is  undoing  what  has  been  done 
in  the  wrong  way — going  back  to  the  very  be- 
ginning and  disentangling  the  confused  threads 
of  an  encumbering  weave,  combating  a  dislike 
and  dread  of  what  should  have  been  a  delight. 

No  matter  how  stupid  a  child  has  come  to  be- 
lieve himself  to  be,  you  can  persuade  him  that 
there  is  some  work  meant  for  him  which  he  can 
do  better  than  any  one  else  in  the  world — ^that 
he  has  some  gift  whose  development  will  lead  to 
a  happy,  useful  existence.     Train  him  to  see  that: 

"  I  am  only  one. 
But  still  I  am  one. 
I  cannot  do  everything. 
But  still  I  can  do  something. 
And  because  I  cannot  do  everything 
I  will  not  refuse  to  do  the  something  that  I  can  do." 

There  must  be  no  quitting  work  when  the 
whistle  blows.  Insist  that  a  good  piece  of  work 
be  accomplished  each  day  before  the  quitting- 
time  can  be  considered. 

The  first  requisite  in  this  training  of  the  dis- 
couraged child  is  to  give  him  faith  in  his  own 


THE  RETARDED   CHILD  177 

possibilities.  Give  tasks  suited  to  his  strength. 
Mastering  one  thing  is  better  than  attempting 
many  things  and  mastering  none.  Let  the  pupil 
have  the  sense  of  victory  over  one  subject,  and  he 
will  attack  others  with  a  confidence  that  assures 
another  conquest.  It  is  this  sense  of  achieve- 
ment that  makes  the  boy,  or  for  all  that  the  man, 
feel  that  he  is  somebody,  and  that  his  life  is  after 
all  worth  while. 

Make  use  of  homely  examples,  as  the  Tortoise 
and  the  Hare.  Tell  him  of  the  spider  that  spun 
his  web  seven  times  as  it  was  successively  de- 
stroyed. Show  him  that  the  noblest  undertakings 
in  all  history  have  been  completed  only  by  hard 
labor,  under  adverse  conditions,  that  ultimate 
triumph  is  ours  only  through  the  effort  to  make 
each  day  a  round  in  the  ladder  of  success.  On 
the  whole,  and  with  tactful  modifications,  the 
method  and  plan,  as  given  in  the  chapters  relat- 
ing to  reading,  spelling,  and  arithmetic,  should 
be  followed;  but  we  shall  give  here  some  con- 
crete examples  of  how  to  teach  these  to  the  back- 
ward child.  The  boy  who  comes  from  school 
laden  with  home  work  in  arithmetic  might  be 
given  one  of  the  exercises  each  evening  for  five 
minutes.  A  single  month^s  training  will  make 
him  a  quicker  worker. 

The  mother  may  discover  that  her  child  of  ten 
years  or  more,  after  spending  several  years  in 
school,  is  a  failure  so  far  as  arithmetic  is  con- 
cerned.    He  does  not  know  the  multiplication 


178  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

tables,  he  cannot  solve  mentally  the  simplest 
problems.  Confused  by  the  teaching  received, 
he  has  great  difficulty  in  applying  his  mind  to  an 
assigned  task;  he  does  not  give  attention,  he  can- 
not concentrate.  Now  it  is  not  an  easy  matter 
to  take  in  hand  a  pupil  who  has  reached  the  point 
of  hating  study,  of  despairing  of  his  own  power 
of  accomplishment.  He  must  first  learn  that 
steady  work  will  overcome  difficulties  and  increase 
his  power  to  work.  No  other  subject  seems  quite 
so  available  for  this  purpose  as  arithmetic. 

The  plan  for  nimiber  work  outlined  for  be- 
ginners may  well  be  followed  with  the  twelve- 
year-old  backward  child,  the  material  difference 
being  in  the  teacher's  attitude.  It  is  now  a  dif- 
ferent mind  with  which  she  must  deal,  and  the 
task  is  complicated  by  the  confused  mass  of  un- 
digested information  and  notions  in  the  pupiFs 
brain.  But,  while  the  task  is  difficult,  it  is  by  no 
means  hopeless,  and,  since  it  cannot  be  done  in 
school,  it  must  be  done  by  the  mother  or  a  special 
instructor.  We  shall  use  objects  here,  as  for  the 
younger  pupils,  yet  their  use  need  not  be  so  long 
continued.  Also  we  shall  use  a  scheme  that  is 
out  of  place  with  the  little  child,  because  of  the 
danger  of  over-stimulation.  This  is  the  practice 
of  timing  the  pupil,  marking  in  his  book  the  length 
of  time  needed  for  a  piece  of  work,  dating  it,  and 
day  after  day  testing  to  note  the  gain  in  speed. 

For  example,  ask  him  to  count  to  loo  by  twos, 
timing  him.     The  first  count  may,  in  some  cases. 


THE  RETARDED  CHILD  179 

require  three  to  five  minutes.  Note  this,  explain- 
ing to  the  pupil  that  each  time  he  does  this  he 
may  expect  the  task  to  become  easier.  Again 
he  tries,  and  perhaps  reaches  100  in  half  the  pre- 
vious time.  Now  his  interest  is  aroused;  he  is 
learning  to  work.  He  gives  attention  to  this  as 
he  would  to  a  game  of  marbles.  The  record  in 
his  book  might  appear  thus: 


UNT 

ING    TO 

100  BY  Twos 

September  5th, 

ist  time 
2d      " 
3d      " 

3  min. 

I     "    40  s 

I     " 

September  6th, 

ist  time 
2d       " 
3d      " 

50 
40 

35 

sec. 
« 

« 

The  counting  backward  by  twos  from  100  may 
be  taken  in  the  same  way;  and  so  may  the  suc- 
ceeding addition  tables  be  treated.  This  is  main- 
ly for  the  purpose  of  pinning  his  attention  to  his 
work.  This  plan  has  value  because  the  pupil 
is  striving  to  improve  his  own  record.  But  rapid- 
ity is  not  the  main  object.  Accuracy  comes  first. 
The  pupil  is  first  to  be  sure,  then  quick.  If  he 
makes  a  single  mistake  the  exercise  is  a  failure. 
Let  him  at  once  stop  there  and  begin  all  over 
again. 


i8o  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Most  teachers  have  noticed  how  difficult  it 
seems  to  teach  a  child  the  multiplication  table  as 
he  gets  older.  It  is  one  of  the  things  learned  far 
more  easily  at  nine  than  at  twelve.  For  this  rea- 
son we  shall  change  somewhat  the  order  of  work 
outlined,  and  instead  of  learning  the  multiplica- 
tion tables  immediately  after  addition  the  pupil 
will  work  steadily  at  measuring  numbers,  as 

I8-^3  = 
I8-^4=  etc. 

going  as  rapidly  as  his  ability  seems  to  justify. 
From  one  half -hour  to  an  hour  a  day  may  well 
be  spent  at  this.  Then  after  a  few  weeks  stress 
may  be  laid  upon  the  multiplication  tables.  So 
much  for  arithmetic. 

The  child  of  ten  or  thereabouts  who  hitherto 
has  not  made  satisfactory  progress  in  learning 
to  spell  and  read  may  start  afresh,  beginning 
with  the  first  of  the  following  lessons.  In  spell- 
ing, however,  as  in  arithmetic,  the  plan  of  dealing 
with  a  six-year-old  can  rarely  be  successfully  fol- 
lowed with  one  several  years  older,  especially  if 
the  latter  has  been  gorged  with  lessons.  While 
this  older  child  is  learning  words,  according  to 
the  lists  given,  the  following  plan  should  be  pur- 
sued. If  judiciously  carried  out  it  will  tend  to 
improve  his  spelling  and  English  and  to  promote 
habits  of  concentration. 


THE  RETARDED  CHILD  i8i 

Take  Longfellow's  poem,  *'The  Builders," 
which  begins: 

All  are  architects  of  fate, 
Working  in  these  walls  of  time; 
Some  with  massive  deeds  and  great, 
Some  with  ornaments  of  rhyme. 

Tell  the  child  to  study  the  first  line  until  he 
can  write  it  correctly  from  memory.  At  the  out- 
set this  will  not  be  easy,  although  there  is  but 
one  hard  word.  Let  the  pupil  at  first  take  his 
own  time  to  study  the  words  before  attempting 
to  reproduce  them.  If  a  single  error  is  made  he 
must  study  the  line  again  and  write  it  anew.  A 
single  line  may  be  sufficient  for  the  first  lesson, 
especially  if  real  difficulty  is  experienced  by  the 
novice.  The  next  day  he  will  study  the  second 
line  in  the  same  way.  As  this  will  be  mastered 
with  more  ease,  the  pleased  child  will  welcome 
the  opportunity  to  try  another. 

After  a  few  weeks  of  this  training  the  pupil  is 
usually  able  to  learn  and  reproduce  a  whole 
stanza  in  the  time  at  first  required  for  a  single 
line.  The  lessons,  as  mentioned  before,  should 
always  be  dated  and  measured  in  order  to  have  a 
record  of  progress.  Increased  ability  to  memo- 
rize may  easily  enable  the  same  pupil  after  a  few 
months  to  reproduce  correctly  a  considerable 
number  of  stanzas,  such  as  that  given,  in  the  time 
at  first  required  for  one. 

What  has  been  said  of  training  the  backward 


i82   EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

child  individually  may  apply  to  a  great  extent 
to  the  teaching  of  a  class  which  has  been  poorly 
grounded.  The  main  idea  is  to  attempt  but 
little  at  first,  but  to  require  such  plain  and  defi- 
nite results  that  even  the  child  can  notice  them 
and  must  be  impressed  by  them.  To  give  an  il- 
lustration: A  teacher  took  up  her  duties  in  a  re- 
mote country  school  of  a  single  room,  and  there 
faced  a  disheartening  state  of  affairs.  The  chil- 
dren, large  and  small,  had  been  so  wretchedly 
trained  that  there  was  no  foundation  of  knowl- 
edge whatsoever,  and  no  starting-point,  but  a  new 
start  had  to  be  made  by  each  and  all.  To  teach 
reading,  spelling,  writing,  and  arithmetic  all  in 
one  year  and  bring  the  pupils  forward  in  accord- 
ance with  their  ages  reminded  her  of  Caesar,  who 
had  to  do  so  many  things  at  the  same  time.  The 
undertaking  was  so  formidable  that  the  teacher 
decided  to  start  by  teaching  but  one  thing,  in  the 
belief  that  this  would  be  better  than  attempting 
all  and  getting  nowhere.  She  chose  writing. 
The  children  wrote  copies  all  day  long,  with  fre- 
quent intermissions,  and  were  delighted  to  find 
at  the  close  of  the  first  day  that  they  could  do 
better  than  in  the  morning.  Some  had  learned 
to  write  but  a  single  letter,  others  merely  noted 
the  improvement  on  the  first  copy.  They  wrote 
steadily  for  three  weeks.  In  that  time  they  made 
greater  improvement  than  would  ordinarily  have 
been  made  in  two  years  of  slipshod  practice. 
Furthermore,   the  children  beheld  with  delight 


THE  RETARDED  CHILD  183 

the  marvelous  gain,  and  for  the  first  time  knew 
the  fruits  of  sustained  endeavor.  Because  the 
progress  was  easily  marked  writing  in  itself  was 
a  fortunate  choice  for  a  beginning. 

The  next  subject  taken  up  in  practically  the 
same  way  was  arithmetic.  This,  alternating  with 
penmanship,  was  continued  until  a  safe  and 
profitable  beginning  had  been  made.  Long  les- 
sons on  the  one  subject,  merely  stopping  for  fre- 
quent outdoor  intermissions,  were  not  tiring  to 
the  children.  After  all,  the  wisdom  of  the  say- 
ing, ** Change  of  occupation  is  rest,"  is  as  ques- 
tionable as  that  of  so  many  catchy  phrases.  It 
becomes  foolish  if  carried  to  extremes. 

Then  came  the  spelling,  on  which  now  the  stress 
of  work  was  placed,  while  writing  and  arithmetic 
occupied  shorter  periods.  The  children  came  to 
learn  half  a  dozen  spelling-lessons  in  a  day;  in- 
terest was  at  high  tide.  Every  child  worked  as 
hard  and  fast  as  he  could.  At  the  close  of  the 
year  such  progress  had  been  attained  that  the 
usual  year's  work  in  the  regulation  school  could 
not  be  compared  to  it. 

The  once-awakened  and  ever-increasing  inter- 
est which  each  child  felt  in  his  own  manifest 
progress  successfully  combated  the  previously 
uncontrollable  and  obstinate  absorption  in  some 
injurious  line  of  thought  of  his  own  choosing, 
quickened  the  process  of  mind-maturing,  and 
provided  the  much-wanted  stimulus  to  mental 
growth. 
13 


i84  EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT  HOME 

S3mipathetic  understanding  of  the  backward 
children's  needs  and  an  utter  absence  of  hurtful 
environment  had  done  the  rest. 

**The  stone  that  the  builders  rejected,  the  same 
is  become  the  headstone  of  the  corner." 


XIII 

AIDS  FOR   HOME   TEACHING 

Note-Books 

THE  child  should  have  a  composition -book  for 
all  written  work.  Although  a  comparatively 
short  time  will  be  given  daily  to  written  lessons, 
yet  the  way  in  which  these  are  planned  and  exe- 
cuted will  have  an  important  bearing  upon  mind- 
training  and  the  formation  of  good  habits.  A 
few  rules  may  be  of  service  in  the  beginning: 

1.  Do  not  hurry  the  child  in  his  writing.  A  single 
line  representing  his  very  best  effort  is  worth  some- 
thing. It  represents  creative  power.  A  whole  page 
embodying  carelessness  or  indifference  would  better 
not  have  been  written. 

2.  No  written  work  should  be  thrown  away.  No 
lessons  should  be  prepared  on  loose  paper  that  will 
shortly  reach  the  waste-basket.  The  destination  of  the 
work  is  too  apt  to  influence  its  character. 

3.  Each  day's  work  should  be  an  improvement  over 
that  of  the  preceding  day.  Make  this  fact  impressive. 
Teach  him  in  this  book  the  truth  of  the  old  saying 
that  repeated  acts  form  habit,  habits  make  character, 
and  character  determines  destiny. 


i86  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

If  each  day's  work  is  better  than  the  last 
the  child  will  see  that  a  week  represents  notable 
improvement,  and  that  a  month's  work  some- 
times produces  a  transformation.  Previous  work 
with  its  mistakes  and  imperfections  is  before 
his  eyes  as  a  reminder  to  eliminate  these  im- 
perfections. Little  by  little  the  young  child 
will  learn  to  regard  as  important  the  appear- 
ance of  his  book — he  will  keep  margins,  attend 
to  the  size  and  uniformity  of  the  letters,  and 
avoid  blots.  Since  erasures  are  not  tolerated, 
he  must  take  increasing  pains.  There  are  few 
more  pernicious  habits  than  that  of  prepar- 
ing written  lessons  in  a  slovenly  manner — the 
sure  result  when  no  special  value  is  attached  to 
the  written  page.  The  cost  of  neat  composition- 
books  may  possibly  amount  to  something  more 
than  would  the  reams  of  cheap  paper,  yet  they 
acquire  a  value  that  makes  them  worth  keeping 
permanently  and  worth  putting  one's  best  efforts 
upon. 

Thus  the  child  is  early  trained  in  valuable 
habits.  He  takes  pride  in  the  work  of  his  hand. 
He  compares  his  work  at  different  periods  with 
his  own  earlier  work  and  with  models,  and  judges 
as  to  the  gain.  More  than  all  else  he  strives  to 
improve  upon  his  own  record,  a  higher  incentive 
than  merely  trying  to  get  ahead  of  somebody 
else. 

For  the  beginner  a  single  note -book  of  the 
ten -cent  kind  is  sufficient.     In  this  he  will  keep 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  187 

all  his  written  lessons  of  each  day,  somewhat  after 
this  fashion.  To-day's  lesson  may  be  to  write 
a  few  lines  from  ** Hiawatha*': 

By  the  shores  of  Gitche  Gumee, 
By  the  shining  Big-Sea- Water, 
Stood  the  wigwam  of  Nokomis. 

The  child  intends  to  illustrate  this  lesson,  and  so 
practises  the  drawing  of  the  wigwam  until  at 
least  it  will  not  be  mistaken  for  something  else. 
In  the  drawing  we  must  deviate  from  the  rule 
just  given.  He  will  practise  many  times  on  bits 
of  paper,  since  this  is  an  undertaking  in  which  he 
is  eager  to  excel.  Then  in  his  book  he  draws  the 
wigwam,  and  underneath  in  his  best  writing  he 
copies  the  two  or  three  appropriate  lines.  Now 
the  book  has  become  a  thing  of  wondrous  beauty 
to  the  small  beginner.  Never  fear  but  that  he 
will  try  to  make  the  next  lesson  and  the  next 
one  still  more  beautiful. 

In  another  part  of  his  book  he  may  keep  what- 
ever written  spelling  you  give  him,  where  he  will 
occasionally  compare  the  assignments  as  to  length 
and  difficulty,  and  so  measure  his  growing  powers. 
In  still  another  section  he  writes  the  arithmetic 
tables  as  he  works  them  out  with  the  pebbles. 
He  is  learning  not  to  crowd  his  work  in  an  un- 
sightly manner. 

For  the  child  who  can  already  read  and  write 
there  may  be  several  note-books.  One  may  be 
devoted  wholly  to  penmanship,   one  to  arith- 


i88  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT   HOME 

metic,  and  one  to  whatever  poetry  and  stories 
are  written.  While  every  book  will  be  artistic 
because  it  represents  good  work  according  to  one's 
gifts,  yet  a  fourth  book  for  the  child  of  eight  or 
nine  may  become  a  treasury  of  beauty  and  art. 
By  the  time  the  pupil  is  ready  for  this  book  he 
keeps  an  attractive  page  and  has  a  liking  for 
good  literature.  So  this  note-book  may  well  be 
of  a  better  quality  than  the  others,  preferably  a 
loose-leaf  book  with  a  stiff  black  cover.  Book 
and  paper  sufficient  for  a  year  will  cost  about 
seventy  cents. 

While  individual  taste  will  largely  decide  the 
matter  and  manner  of  this  book,  one  mode  of 
arrangement,  the  work  of  a  girl  of  eight,  is  here 
described.  It  is  kept  for  the  real  gems  of  litera- 
ture that  the  child  loves  and  learns. 

This  book  has  on  the  fly-leaf,  written  by  a 
teacher,  the  child's  name  and  address  and  the 
date  when  the  book  was  started.  On  the  first 
page  is  pasted  an  American  flag  in  colors,  care- 
fully cut  from  a  July  magazine,  and  underneath 
begins  the  song  ** America,"  continuing  on  the 
reverse  side.  On  the  next  page,  in  the  center, 
appears  a  picture  in  sepia  of  a  bust  of  Christopher 
Colimibus,  and  the  announcement,  *' Notes  on 
American  History."  On  the  reverse  page  are 
two  more  small  pictures,  showing  the  departure 
of  Columbus  on  his  western  voyage,  and  on  the 
next  page  begins  the  splendid  poem  of  Joaquin 
Miller's,  *  *  Columbus. ' '   A  space  of  fully  two  inches 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  189 

IS  left  at  the  top  of  the  page  for  the  title  of  this 
poem,  and  with  it  the  illustration — an  ink  sketch 
of  a  gallant  vessel  in  full  sail,  which,  simple  as  it 
is,  seems  to  call  aloud  to  one,  **Sail  on,  sail  on, 
and  on !"  On  succeeding  pages  are  more  pictures, 
about  two  by  two  and  a  half  inches,  illustrating 
scenes  in  the  subsequent  career  of  the  great  ex- 
plorer, with  a  few  explanatory  notes  written  by 
the  child,  facts  gleaned  from  the  teacher  or  the 
book.  Not  for  a  moment  should  this  be  called 
history.  It  is  merely  part  of  the  poem's  great 
lesson. 

Farther  on  the  child  has  written  Tennyson's 
** Bugle  Song,"  illustrating  it  herself  by  copying 
in  ink  a  stately  castle.  Then  for  some  time  ap- 
pear the  poems  that  the  child  liked  well  enough 
to  voluntarily  memorize  —  Longfellow's  *'The 
Arrow  and  the  Song,"  Tennyson's  *'The  Shell," 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  latter  an  excellent 
drawing  of  a  spiral  shell.  Then,  seemingly  in  the 
mood  for  shells,  she  has  written  Holmes's  *' Cham- 
bered Nautilus."  Then  comes  *'The  Skeleton  in 
Armor,"  which  it  seems  had  fascinated  the 
child,  and  Tennyson's  **  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade." 

Fine  pictures  in  beautiful  tones  on  almost 
any  subject  may  be  obtained  from  different  com- 
panies (especially  the  Perry  Picture  Co.,  Boston, 
or  the  Geo.  P.  Brown  Co.,  Beverly,  Mass.).  The 
mother  should  write  these  companies  for  cata- 
logues.    The  range  and  number  of  the  pictures, 


I90  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

as  well  as  their  low  price  (from  one-half  to  two 
cents  a  piece)   may  well  be  termed  marvelous. 

Even  the  successful  pasting  of  these  pictures, 
placing  them  accurately  on  the  page,  judging  of 
effectiveness  of  position,  and  using  the  paste 
without  smearing,  requires  considerable  skill  for 
a  child.  He  must  also  paste  the  little  paper  rings 
(which  may  be  purchased  at  a  stationery  store) 
around  the  apertures  in  the  page,  to  prevent  the 
leaf  tearing  from  the  steel  fasteners. 

A  child  takes  pride  in  the  neat  appearance,  or- 
derly arrangement,  and  valuable  contents  of  this 
book.  Certain  principles  of  art  are  also  inocu- 
lated. The  child  learns  that  there  is  beauty  in 
the  severe  straight  line,  and  that  cheap  things 
are  overdone,  overcurved,  and  overgilded. 

Anagrams 

For  a  small  sum  you  can  purchase  boxes  con- 
taining several  sets  of  the  alphabet  printed  on 
one  side  of  cardboard  squares.  With  them  are 
directions  for  playing  games  of  word-building. 
These  letters  are  neater  in  appearance  than  the 
home-made  ones,  yet  the  making  of  the  latter 
possesses  the  great  advantage  of  giving  the  child 
something  profitable  to  do.  He  may  hunt  out 
large  letters  in  old  magazines,  carefully  cut  them 
out  and  paste  them  on  the  inch  squares  of  card- 
board that  he  has  marked  off  and  cut  out  with 
your  assistance. 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  191 

Poetry 

No  other  single  volume  of  the  mother-teacher's 
Hbrary  can  quite  take  the  place  of  Longfellow's 
poems.  This  book  is  indispensable  to  the  Ameri- 
can child.  Indeed,  if  his  whole  literature  until 
the  age  of  ten  were  drawn  from  this  book,  not 
only  would  he  be  far  from  intellectually  poor, 
but  he  would  also  have  an  indisputably  good 
foundation  for  future  literary  studies,  far  better, 
indeed,  than  if  he  were  supplied  with  dozens  of 
the  modern  books  written  expressly  to  fit  the 
child's  understanding. 

Longfellow  is  unquestionably  the  children's 
poet,  the  poet  of  the  home  and  the  heart.  Not 
a  line  has  he  written  that,  dying,  he  could  wish 
to  blot.  To  know  well  a  single  great  writer  is  to 
acquire  a  feeling  of  kinship  for  all  great  writers, 
and  this  feeling  is  greatly  fostered  in  the  child  by 
giving  him  for  his  very  own  this  book. 

Note  the  remarkable  range  of  material,  be- 
ginning with  the  epic  **  Hiawatha,"  which  in  it- 
self varies  from  the  reach  of  comprehension  of 
the  five-year-old  to  fit  the  taste  of  the  mature 
student.  Then  you  may  choose  for  the  little  one 
such  poems  as  **The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,'^ 
"The  Children's  Hour,"  **Village  Blacksmith," 
''The  Arrow  and  the  Song,"  and  ''The  Rainy 
Day,"  suited  extremely  well  to  children  of  eight 
or  thereabouts.  Next  we  have  "The  Builders," 
"The  Bridge,"  "Paul  Revere's  Ride,"  and  "The 


192   EDUCATING  THE   CHILD  AT   HOME 

Day  is  Done."  After  these  the  child  will  be  able 
to  comprehend  the  *' Courtship  of  Miles  Stan- 
dish,"  when  read  to  him  by  the  mother;  and,  last- 
ly, we  have  the  creation  that  belongs  at  the  very 
pinnacle  of  American  literature,  ** Evangeline." 
To  so  rear  a  child  until  he  reads  with  pleasure  the 
magnificent  selections  last  named  will  school  him 
to  read  intelligently  other  authors  that  without 
such  preliminary  training  would  be  incompre- 
hensible. 

If  there  can  be  but  one  volume  of  the  modern 
writers  in  the  home  school,  let  that  one  be  Long- 
fellow: if  two,  add  to  it  Tennyson's  poems. 
For  the  small  child  there  are  two  exquisite  poems : 
'^  What  Does  Little  Birdie  Say?"  and  ''Sweet  and 
Low."  The  nine-year-old  will  Hke  ''The  Brook," 
which  gives  him  many  new  words,  a  widened 
physiographical  vista,  and  something  for  con- 
templation in  the  refrain: 

For  men  may  come  and  men  may  go, 
But  I  go  on  for  ever. 

Especially  the  girl  of  nine  will  learn  **Blow, 
Bugle,  Blow,"  and  ''Break,  Break,  Break."  Both 
boy  and  girl  will  learn  "The  Charge  of  the  Light 
Brigade,"  with  its  striking  illustration  of  un- 
swerving obedience.  At  the  very  close  of  his  life, 
at  the  threshold  of  eternal  childhood,  Tennyson 
wrote  his  immortal  poem,  "Crossing  the  Bar." 
When  this  poem  is  properly  read  to  children, 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  193 

they  will  seldom  express  a  distaste  for  it  or  a  lack 
of  inclination  to  make  it  their  own. 

In  the  ** Idylls  of  the  King"  we  see  the  adven- 
tures of  King  Arthur's  Knights  told  in  the  wonder- 
ful word-painting  of  a  master  mind.  This  is  not 
easy  or  light  reading,  but  it  well  repays  the  mother 
to  study  it  closely  that  she  may  later  give  it  to 
the  children.  You  are  always  safe  in  choosing 
Tennyson  for  his  poetry,  sanity,  morals,  and 
scientific  accuracy. 

Macaulay  wrote  few  poems  for  children,  but 
some  are  well  worth  while.  ''Horatius  at  the 
Bridge"  gives  a  taste  for  Roman  history,  and  it 
gives  the  child  an  agreeable  introduction  to  this 
great  man.  They  come  later  to  his  essays  as  to 
the  discourse  of  an  old  friend. 

Every  child  may  learn  **The  Mountain  and 
the  Squirrel,"  by  Emerson,  and  many  of  them 
will  listen  intelligently  to  the  serious  poem, 
"Good-By,   Proud  World." 

Browning  did  a  kindness  to  childhood  in  writ- 
ing the  '*Pied  Piper  of  HameHn,"  and  in  connec- 
tion with  this  one  may  safely  point  the  moral 
and  illuminate  it  with  examples  of  the  every- 
day kind  —  if  you  dance  you  must  pay  the 
fiddler. 

Joaquin  Miller  has  given  us  a  lesson  in  *'  Colum- 
bus." This  may  be  memorized  by  the  child  of 
ten  or  younger. 

J.  G.  Holland's  ''Gradatim'*  may  well  be 
learned  word  for  word: 


194  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Heaven  is  not  reached  at  a  single  bound, 
But  we  build  the  ladder  by  which  we  rise 
From  the  lowly  earth  to  the  vaulted  skies, 
And  we  mount  to  the  summit  round  by  round. 

Now  and  then  a  child  of  nine  or  ten  will  be 
interested  in  the  forms  of  poetical  composition. 
Such  a  one  will  gladly  learn  Milton^s  wonderfiil 
*' Sonnet  on  His  Blindness,'*  and  at  the  same  time 
learn  the  structure  of  a  sonnet — '*a  little  song, 
usually  of  fourteen  lines."  But  few  sonnets  come 
within  the  range  of  young  pupils. 

What  ten-year-old  country  lad  will  fail  to  like 
and  understand  Whittier's  *' Snowbound,"  *' Bare- 
foot Boy,"  and  **In  School  Days"?  Requiring 
perhaps  a  little  finer  comprehension,  yet  again 
not  beyond  the  appreciation  of  country  boy  or 
girl,  is  Lowell's  "Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  and  the 
passage  **A  Day  in  June"  they  should  learn  by 
heart.  Even  the  little  ones  may  learn  Lowell's 
"First  Snowfall." 

Another  genial  American  poet  in  whom  we 
may  well  strive  to  create  a  lively  interest  is 
Holmes.  "Old  Ironsides"  goes  in  the  list  of  stir- 
ring patriotic  poems,  while  "The  Chambered 
Nautilus"  should  not  merely  be  saved  for  high- 
school  classes.  Instead  of  telling  you  at  what 
age  to  give  these  fine  things  to  the  children  let  it 
be  said  once  for  all  that  the  best  way  is  to  try 
them  one  and  another  on  the  child,  giving  him 
each  unless  he  specifically  rejects  it. 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  195 

To  stir  patriotism  read  to  the  children,  not 
once,  but  once  in  a  while,  E.  E.  Hale's  **Man 
Without  a  Country."  They  may  learn  every 
word  of  Scott's 

Breathes  there  the  man  with  soul  so  dead — 

Take  the  stirring  verses  of  **The  Flag  Goes 
By."  At  this  age  every  nerve  will  thrill  in  re- 
sponse to 

Blue  and  crimson  and  white  it  shines, 
Over  the  steel-tipped,  ordered  lines; 
Hats  off!    the  colors  before  us  fly. 
But  more  than  the  flag  is  passing  by. 

Fairy  Stories 

Fairy  tales  and  twilight  stories  are  among  the 
inalienable  rights  of  every  child.  That  is  not 
true  education  which  neglects  to  train  the  feel- 
ings and  imagination.  Unfortunate  is  the  child 
whose  infancy  has  never  known  Cinderella,  Jack 
and  the  Bean  Stalk,  Jack  the  Giant  -  Killer, 
Aladdin  and  his  Wonderful  Lamp,  Ali  Baba  and 
the  Forty  Thieves,  Blue  Beard,  Sindbad  the  Sailor, 
Ugly  Duckling,  Three  Bears,  and  Tom  Thumb. 
These  tales,  beautifully  illustrated  by  Peter 
Newell,  are  in  Favorite  Fairy  Tales,  a  selection  of 
the  favorite  stories  of  various  distinguished  men 
and  women.  There  is  a  smaller  book  of  selec- 
tions by  Ada  Van  Stone  Harris,  Favorites  from 


196   EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

Fairyland.  Another  book  of  selections,  Famous 
Stories  Every  Child  Should  KnoWy  gives  us  several 
masterpieces  —  Ruskin's  "King  of  the  Golden 
River,"  Hawthorne's  **  Great  Stone  Face,"  Hale's 
**Man  Without  a  Country,"  Ouida's  **Nurn- 
berg  Stove." 

If  still  more  books  are  to  be  chosen,  Alice  in 
Wonderland  is  a  perennial  delight,  and  Through 
the  Looking'Glass  follows  closely.  There  are 
editions  of  both  illustrated  by  Peter  Newell. 
Andersen  and  Grimm  are  familiar  classics.  Kings- 
ley's  Water  Babies  is  liked  by  most  children. 

Books 

There  are  so  many  books  that  the  mother  will 
enjoy  reading  aloud  to  the  children  from  time 
to  time — not  alone  for  the  poetry  or  the  story,  but 
as  a  foundation  for  future  intelHgent  progress — 
that  it  is  difficult  to  choose  among  them.  There 
are  too  many  books,  and  if  driven  to  make  a 
choice  it  would  be  better  to  read  nothing  than 
to  attempt  to  read  everything. 

However,  we  want  every  child  to  know  the  love 
of  books.  Then  in  later  years,  when  the  world's 
poetry  turns  to  colorless  prose,  he  can  go  to  these 
silent  friends  and  by  their  aid  reconstruct  in  fair 
form  the  beauty  and  joys  of  vanished  days  and 
buried  dreams.  What  better  way  to  nourish  this 
love  of  books  than  for  the  mother  to  gather  the 
children  about  her  in  the  long  winter  evenings  and 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  197 

read  to  them  and  talk  over  with  them  the  legacy 
of  great  minds?  Take  such  stories  as  *'Rip  Van 
Winkle/*  and  '^The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow/' 
from  Irving*s  Sketch  Book,  written  in  the  inimita- 
ble style  of  that  great  author.  They  breathe  the 
very  spirit  of  those  far-off  days  of  colonial  life 
along  the  Hudson's  banks;  they  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  been  written  by  any  but  one  who  had 
spent  his  childhood  amid  these  very  scenes. 

Quite  different  is  such  a  book  as  Chapin's  The 
Story  of  the  Rkinegold,  written  for  those  who  would 
know  the  legends  on  which  are  based  the  music 
dramas  of  Wagner's  Nibelungenleid. 

Again  we  have  The  Prince  and  the  Pauper,  by 
Mark  Twain,  a  story  of  the  prince  who  became 
Edward  VI.  and  a  street  waif  who  for  a  time 
change  places.  Two  small  books  of  selections 
from  Mark  Twain  have  been  made  for  children — 
Travels  at  Home  and  Travels  in  History.  A  similar 
book  of  selections  from  the  works  of  William  Dean 
Howells  is  entitled  Boy  Life. 

Or  we  may  take  Hawthorne's  Wonder  Book,  in 
which  are  elaborated  the  Greek  m3^hs.  Not  a 
book  to  be  hurried  over,  since  the  difficult  wording 
here  and  there  needs  elucidation.  One  who  reads 
this  understandingly  will  want  to  know  Greek  his- 
tory, since  the  history  of  Greece  has  its  very  roots 
and  part  of  the  trunk  embedded  in  mythology. 

As  a  reference  book  for  literature,  as  well  as 
for  the  fascinating  contents  of  the  book  itself, 
the  mother  will  find  useful  Bulfinch's  Age  of  Fable, 


198  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

The  story  of  the  Iliad  and  of  the  Odyssey  may  be 
found  well  written  in  cheap  editions. 

If  one  would  have  books  that  will  hold  spell- 
bound the  ten-year-old,  we  have  Bold  Robin 
Hood  and  His  Outlaw  Band  and  Robinson  CrusoCy 
both  illustrated  by  Louis  Rhead,  who  has  also 
illustrated  beautiful  editions  of  Swiss  Family 
Robinson,  Gulliver's  Travels,  and  Tom  Brown  at 
Rugby.  To  complete  the  happiness  of  the  young 
outlaw,  give  him  Stevenson's  Treasure  Island,  a 
pirate  story  without  profanity. 

If  with  the  foregoing  in  the  home  we  place 
Tales  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  some  of  the  works 
of  Jules  Verne,  surely  the  youthful  mind  will  not 
lack  stimulus. 

Other  classics  that  the  mother  would  place 
within  the  child's  reach  are  Shakespeare's  Mer- 
chant of  Venice  and  Julius  Ccesar.  In  the  Auto- 
biography of  Benjamin  Franklin  we  have  the 
shrewd  wisdom  of  the  kindly  philosopher  and 
genius,  whose  maxims  of  practical  economy  should 
be  instilled  in  every  child: 

A  small  leak  sinks  a  great  ship. 

For  want  of  a  nail  the  shoe  was  lost; 
For  want  of  a  shoe  the  horse  was  lost; 
For  want  of  a  horse  the  rider  was  lost. 

Text-Books 

The  best  text-books  for  children  under  ten  are 
the  best  child  literature,  like  **  Hiawatha."    There 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  199 

should  be  on  hand  a  good  dictionary,  which  the 
child  should  learn  to  use  at  an  early  age.  There 
may  well  be  readable  histories  of  Greece,  Rome, 
England,  and  America.  The  Children's  Plu- 
tarch, by  F.  T.  Gould,  in  two  volumes — Tales  of 
the  Greeks  and  Tales  of  the  Romans — is  most  valu- 
able in  its  ethical  quality,  as  well  as  its  story- 
telling interest.  Among  stories  of  primitive  life 
are  The  Story  of  Ah,  Kipling^s  Jungle  Books,  and 
Du  Chaillu*s  The  Country  of  the  Dwarfs.  A  well- 
written  geography,  such  as  Tarr  and  McMurry's, 
can  be  included  in  the  home  library.  Two  valu- 
able little  books  which  indicate  the  relation  of 
geography  to  life  and  industry  are  Monroe  and 
Buckbee's  Our  Country  and  Its  People  and 
Europe  and  Its  People,  Great  care  must  be 
taken,  however,  in  explaining  maps.  Children's 
minds  become  very  much  confused  by  wall-charts 
and  maps  in  books. 

For  nature  study  you  will  want  to  possess 
Hodge's  Nature  Study  and  Life  for  study  and  ref- 
erence; also  Gibson's  Sharp  Eyes,  which  gives  in 
winning  fashion  the  procession  of  nature  month 
by  month,  teaching  us  to  see  with  loving  eyes 
the  many  every  -  day  things  we  have  been 
passing  by  as  commonplace.  Gibson's  Secrets 
Out  of  Doors  is  a  small  but  delightful  book 
of  selections  designed  particularly  for  young 
children. 

Quite  readable,  too,  and  scientifically  accurate, 
is  Comstock's  Ways  of  the  Six-footed,  describing 
14 


200  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

butterfly,  bee,  ant,  wasp,  caterpillar,  caddis-fly, 
seventeen-year  locust,  and  mosquito. 

But  of  good  books  on  nature  study  there  is  an 
abundance.  Upland  and  Meadow,  by  Abbot,  is 
especially  charming  to  the  dweller  in  and  near 
New  Jersey,  with  its  neighborly  rambles.  Inger- 
soll's  Wild  Life  in  Orchard  and  Field  tells  us  not 
only  of  the  birds,  but  also  of  such  acquaintances 
as  the  woodchuck,  squirrel,  and  weasel.  Two 
charming  nature  studies  for  children  are  Little 
Busyhodies  and  A  Holiday  with  the  Birds,  by  Miss 
Jeannette  Marks  and  Miss  Moody. 

Harper's  Guide  to  Wild  Flowers,  by  Mrs.  Caro- 
line A.  Creevey,  recently  published,  presents  the 
latest  scientific  agreement  upon  names  and  classi- 
fication, and  affords  three  methods  of  identifica- 
tion— by  color,  by  habitat,  and  by  seasons.  All  this 
is  aided  by  many  colored  plates  and  drawings. 

While  history  and  geography  are  constantly  in 
the  making,  and  while  the  truth  of  to-day  is  the 
superstition  of  to-morrow,  it  is  a  restful  thought 
that  we  at  least  have  constant  friends  in  the 
stars  and  flowers.  Above  all  the  heavens  should 
claim  our  study  and  understanding,  since  what- 
ever knowledge  we  may  gain  of  them  is  with 
us  and  pulsating  to  the  end  of  our  days.  Where 
is  there  a  subject  that  will  fill  a  child's  soul  as 
does  astronomy?  The  humble  shepherds  of 
Chaldea,  lying  wakeful  on  the  hillsides,  watched 
the  stars  rise  and  set  and  knew  astronomy  as 
we  do  not.     Little  wonder  they  were  thinkers 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  201 

and  poets.  Little  wonder  that  we  have  impover- 
ished imaginations  when  not  one  person  in  a  hun- 
dred can  tell  the  hour  by  the  sun,  or  knows  that 
the  stars  hold  a  steady  course  across  the  sky. 
There  is  no  greater  reproach  than  this  to  modem 
methods  of  instruction. 

The  little  book  by  Martin,  The  Friendly  Stars, 
is  written  within  a  child's  comprehension  and 
vocabulary,  and  will  enable  him  to  identify  the 
chief  stars  and  constellations.  Through  its  use 
he  may  be  led  to  the  desire  for  more  scientific 
lore. 

As  a  wholesome  tonic,  if  you  have  been  reading 
such  animal  traits  as  were  never  known,  get 
Burroughs'  sane  and  kindly  Ways  of  Nature.  In 
fact,  you  would  be  glad  to  own  all  this  naturalist's 
series. 

Current  Literature 

There  are  several  magazines  which  will  be  help- 
ful. On  the  farm  the  children  should  have  the 
Country  Gentleman,  which  makes  them  feel  the 
great  worth,  dignity,  and  opportunity  of  farm 
life  and  directs  most  practically  the  seasonal 
activities  from  week  to  week.  The  National 
Geographic  Magazine  is  a  monthly  containing 
wonderful  illustrations  of  the  four  comers  of  the 
globe.  Thus  one  keeps  in  touch  with  recent  dis- 
coveries, undertakings,  and  happenings  of  world- 
wide interest.  It  is  not  written  in  child  language, 
but  at  the  least  the  pictures  are  perfectly  compre- 


202  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

hensible  to  the  very  young.  One  may  be  sure 
of  the  Youth's  Companion  and  St.  Nicholas  con- 
taining no  objectionable  features. 

Books  for  Mothers 

Among  the  well-known  books  on  pedagogy  are 
a  few  that  will  be  valuable  and  interesting  to 
every  mother,  written  in  the  plain  concrete  style 
that  we  all  like  when  looking  for  help  and  counsel. 
William  Hawley  Smith  has  given  us  two  such 
human  documents,  The  Evolution  of  Dodd,  in 
which  we  see  boys — real  boys — depicted,  and  also 
teachers  that  are  very  genuine.  A  later  book  is 
All  the  Children  of  All  the  People,  in  which  we  are 
given  sound  educational  doctrine,  as  in  the  say- 
ings of  the  old  engineer:  **No  man  is  really  well 
educated  who  is  not  *onto  his  job.*" 

In  The  Century  of  the  Child,  by  Ellen  Key,  there 
is  food  for  thought  concerning  the  home  and 
school.  Especially  good  is  much  of  the  chapter 
on  **The  School  of  the  Future.'*  Another  book 
that  will  help  give  mothers  a  clear  idea  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  home  teaching  is  The  School  in  the 
Home,  by  Berle,  whose  own  children  proved  his 
theory  correct  by  being  fitted  for  college  at  the , 
age  most  students  enter  high  school.  Professor 
Swift  gives  us  in  the  first  chapter  of  Mind  in  the 
Making  a  remarkable  summing-up  of  the  lives 
of  the  men  and  women  who  had  great  influence 
during  the  past  century,  every  one  of  the  fifty 


AIDS  FOR  HOME  TEACHING  203 

having  been  a  failure  in  childhood  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  school.  The  book  is  an  interesting 
study  of  the  relation  of  the  human  individual  to 
standardized  education.  Helping  School  Children, 
by  Elsa  Denison,  shows  how  parents  can  aid  from 
outside  the  school. 

As  an  introduction  to  the  methods  of  Montes- 
sori,  now  commanding  so  much  thoughtful  in- 
terest, we  have  a  readable  little  book  by  Dr. 
Theodate  L.  Smith,  The  Montessori  System  in 
Theory  and  Practice. 

For  parents  who  have  time  and  energy  for 
deeper  study  of  the  science  of  education,  in  theory 
and  practice,  we  have  such  literature  as  Spencer's 
Education,  Rousseau's  Emile,  Huxley's  Science 
and  Education,  Dr.  Eliot's  Educational  Reform, 
Aspects  of  Child  Life  and  Education,  by  G.  Stanley 
Hall,  Dr.  Smith,  and  others,  Dewey's  How  We 
Think,  McMurry's  How  to  Study  and  Standards 
of  Elementary  Education,  and  Neff 's  Power  Through 
Perfected  Ideas.  Another  helpful  volume  is  The 
Normal  Child  and  Primary  Education,  by  Gesell. 

We  also  hope  that  every  modem  mother  reads 
Keeping  Up  with  Lizzie,  by  Irving  Bacheller; 
Emmy  Lou,  by  G.  M.  Martin;  and  M5rra  Kelly's 
Little  Citizens. 

Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson  writes  authoritatively 
on  the  health  of  a  child. 

Buy  no  book  that  claims  to  have  no  more  than 
an  ephemeral  value;  buy  nothing  that  can  yield 
its  full  cultural  store  at  one  harvesting.     Dis- 


204  EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 

tinguish  between  what  is  transitory  and  what  is 
eternal.  Primary  text-books  in  most  cases  are  an 
abomination.  Ask  yourself:  ** Shall  I  be  wilHng 
to  give  space  to  this  book  on  my  shelves  for  the 
next  ten  years — twenty  years?"  Mother  Goose f 
Yes.  Longfellow?  Yes.  Robinson  Crusoe  ?  For 
a  lifetime.  The  Jones -Mallory-Squibbs  Arith- 
metic for  Primary  Grades?  To  the  ash-barrel 
with  it. 

Said  Ruskin:  **  No  book  is  worth  anything  that 
is  not  worth  much;  nor  is  it  serviceable  until  it 
has  been  read  and  reread,  and  loved  and  loved 
again,  and  marked,  so  that  you  can  refer  to  the 
passages  you  want  in  it,  as  a  soldier  can  seize  the 
weapon  he  needs  in  an  armory,  or  a  housewife 
can  bring  the  spice  she  needs  from  her  store." 


INDEX 


Abbot,  Upland  and  Mead- 
ow^  200. 

*'A  Day  in  June,"  194. 

Addition,  103,  104,  105,  106, 
108,  109,  114,  180. 

Adenoids,  175. 

iEsop's  Fables,  77. 

Age  of  Fable f  197. 

Aladdin  and  his  Wonderful 
Lamp,  195. 

AH  Baba,  195. 

Alice  in  Wonderland ,  196. 

All  the  Children  of  All  the 
People y  202. 

Alphabet,  learning,  73,  75, 
90,  91,  190. 

Anagrams,  90,  93,  96,  190. 

Andersen's  Fairy  Tales,  196. 

Anemia,  175. 

Antaeus,  legend  of,  153. 

Anther,  147. 

Antony,  Mark,  speech,  63, 
86. 

Arithmetic,  mental,  18,  19, 
114,  128;  easily  acquired , 
28;  how  to  teach,  100- 
128;  number  sense,  loi; 
early  study,  10 1,  102;  ad- 


dition, 103,  104,  106,  108, 
109,  114,  180;  multiplica- 
tion,  104,   105,   107,   109, 

115,  116,  180;  fundamen- 
tal processes,  105;  concrete 
problems,  107,  123,  124; 
speed,  108,  179;  division, 
109-113,  115;  symbols, 
109 ;  strict  measures,  1 1 1 ; 
fractions,  111-113,  116, 
119,  120,  121;  measuring, 

116,  117,  121,  122;  fac- 
tors, 117,  118,  119;  prime 
numbers,  118,  119;  com- 
posite numbers,  118,  119; 
counting,  122,  123,  178, 
179;  concrete  work,  123, 
124;  square  measure,  124, 
125,  126;  surface  meas- 
urement, 126;  cubic  meas- 
ure, 126,  127;  long  divi- 
sion, 127;  for  backward 
children,  179-180. 

"Arrow  and  the  Song,  The," 

189,  191. 
Art,  129,  130,  131,  136. 
Aspects   of   Child   Life  and 

Education y  203. 
Astronomy,  200,  201. 
Athletics,  12. 


2o6     EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


B 

Bacheller,  Irving,  Keeping 
Up  with  Lizzie y  203. 

Backward  children,  76,  170- 
'184;  causes,  175;  train- 
ing, 176-178;  plan  of 
work  outlined,  178-181. 

Bad  company,  57. 

Banks,   Joseph,    172. 

** Barefoot  Boy,"  194. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  172. 

Berle,  The  School  in  the 
Homey  202. 

Bible  as  text-book,  46,  58, 
59,  66. 

*'Blow,  Bugle,  Blow,"  192. 

Blue  Beard,  195. 

Bold  Robin  Hood  and  His 
Outlaw  Band,  198. 

Books,  first,  74,  75,  78;  love 
of,  196-198;  for  mothers, 
202-204. 

Botany,  156,  157. 

Boy  Life,  197. 

''Break,  Break,  Break,"  192. 

*' Bridge,  The,"  191. 

*' Brook,  The,"  192. 

Brown  Co.,  Geo.  P.,  189. 

Browning,  Robert,  **Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin,"  193. 

Bryant's  *  *  Thanatopsis ' ' 
memorized,  79. 

*' Bugle  Song,"  189. 

"Builders,  The,"  181,  191. 

Bulfinch,  Age  of  Fable,  197. 

Burroughs,  John,  quoted, 
1 54 ;  Ways  of  Nature,  20 1 . 


Capital  letters,  82,  85. 
Century  of  the   Child,    The, 

202. 
"Chambered  Nautilus,"  189, 

194. 
Chapin,    The  Story    of    the 

Rhinegold,  197. 
"Charge  of  the  Light  Bri- 
gade, 189,  192. 
Chemistry,  155,  156,  158. 
Child,  confidence  in  mother, 

2. 
"Children's     Hour,     The," 

191. 
Children's     Plutarch,     The, 

199. 
Cinderella,  195. 
"Columbus,"  188, 193. 
Comenius,  39. 
Composite    numbers,     118, 

119. 
Composition-book,  185, 186. 
Comstock's  Ways  of  the  Six- 
footed,  199. 
Concentration,   77,   81,   84, 

113,    163,    165,   166,    167, 

176,  178,  180. 
Concrete  problems,  107, 123, 

124. 
Control,  parental,  175. 
Copying  poetry  and  prose, 

82. 
Counting,  122, 123, 178, 179. 
Country  Gentleman,  201. 
Country  of  the  Dwarfs,  The, 

199* 


INDEX 


207 


"Courtship  of  Miles  Stan- 
dish/'  192. 

Creevey,  Caroline  A.,  Guide 
to  Wild  Flowers,  200. 

"Crossing  the  Bar,"  192. 

Cubic  measure,  126,  127. 

Culture,  155. 

Current  literature,  201,  202. 


Darwin,  Charles,  171. 
"Day  is  Done,  The,"  192. 
Defective  eyesight,  12,  175. 
Denison,       Elsa,       Helping 

School  Children,  203. 
Dewey,    How     We     Think, 

203. 
Dictionary,  early  use,  199. 
Dipper,  Big,  148. 
Discrimination,  141. 
Division,  105,  109-113,  115; 

long,  127. 
Drawing,  76,  135-138,  187. 
Du  Chaillu,  The  Country  of 

the  Dwarfs,  199. 
"Duel,  The,"  67. 

E 

Early  instruction,  2,  31,  32, 

50,  51,  53,  54. 

Ear-minded,  89,  163. 

Edison,  Thomas  A.,  145. 

Education,  begins,  i ;  moth- 
er's control,  2;  funda- 
mental basis,  2;  public- 
school  system,  3,  4,  9-23; 
individual  method,  3,  55; 


proper  mental  environ- 
ment, 4;  home  training, 
4,  5,  39-58;  reforms, 
24-38;  true  aim,  51;  re- 
ligious, 57,  58;  poetry,  a 
factor,  59-72;  English, 
73-87;  spelling,  88-89 
arithmetic,  100-128;  writ- 
ing and  drawing,  129-138; 
observation,  139-158;  the 
work  habit,  159-169;  the 
retarded  child,  170-184; 
aids  for  home  teaching, 
185-204. 

Educational  Reform,  203. 

Elementary  course,  28. 

Eliot,  Educational  Reform, 
203. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo, 
quoted,  82;  "The  Moun- 
tain and  the  Squirrel," 
1 93 ;  "  Good-by ,  Proud 
World,"  193. 

Emile,  203. 

Emmy  Lou,  203. 

English  work,  28;  teaching, 

73-87. 
Erasures,  186. 

Europe  and  Its  People,  199. 
"Evangeline,"  82,  192. 
Evolution  of  Dodd,  The,  202. 
Eye-minded,  89,  163. 
Eyesight,  defective,  12,  175. 


Factors,  117,  118,  119. 
Fairy  stories,  195-196. 


2o8    EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


Famous  Stories  Every  Child 

Should  KnoWy  196. 
Farm  life,  163. 
Favorite  Fairy  Tales j  195. 
Favorites    from     Fairyland^ 

195,  196. 

Field,  Eugene,  67. 

*' First  Snowfall,"    194. 

*'Flag  Goes  By,  The,"  195. 

Foreign  languages,  early- 
study,  31,  32. 

Forty  Thieves,  195. 

Fox  and  the  Grapes,  77. 

Fractions,  111-113, 116,  119, 
120,  121. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  85, 160; 
autobiography,  198. 

Friendly  Stars ^   The,  201. 

Froebel,  39,  41. 

Fulton,  Robert,  171. 

Fundamental  processes  of 
arithmetic,  105. 


Geography,     well  -  written, 

199. 
Gesell,    The    Normal    Child 

and    Primary    Education  y 

203. 
Gibson,    Sharp    Eyes^   199; 

Secrets  Out  of  Doors y  199. 
Giotto,  Italian  painter,  129. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  172. 
"Good-by,    Proud   World," 

193. 
Gould,  F.  J.,  199. 
"Gradation,"  193,  194. 
Grading  system,  14,  17. 


Grammar-school  course,  28. 
Grammar,  study,  82. 
"Great  Stone  Face,"  196. 
Greek  history,  197. 
Greeley,  Horace,  85. 
Grimm,  Fairy  Tales,  196. 
Gulliver's  Travels y  198. 

H 

Hale,  E.  E.,  "Man  Without 
a  Country,"  195,  196. 

Harper's  Guide  to  Wild 
FlowerSy  200. 

Harris,  Ada  Van  Stone,  195. 

Hawthorne,  "Great  Stone 
Face,"  196;  Wonder  Booky 
197. 

Hearing,  defective,   175. 

Helping  School  Children y  203. 

"Hiawatha,"  67,  68,  69,  70, 
71,  72,  73,  75,  98,  187, 
191,  198. 

History,  197,  199. 

Hodge,  Nature  Study  and 
Lifey  199. 

Holiday  with  the  Birds y  Ay 
200. 

Holland,  J.  G.,  "Grada- 
tion," 193,  194. 

Holmes,    Oliver    Wendell, 
'  *  Chambered     Nautilus, ' ' 
189,     194;      "Old     Iron- 
sides," 194. 

Home  instruction,  2,  4,  5,  6, 
8,  39-58,  43,  44. 

"Horatius  at  the  Bridge," 
193. 


INDEX 


209 


Howells,  William  Dean,  Boy 
Life,  197. 

How  to  Study,  203. 

How  We  Think,  203. 

Hudson,  Prof.  George  H.,  on 
observation,  140-150. 

Hunter,  John,  172. 

Humboldt,  Alexander  von, 
171. 

Hutchinson,  Dr.  Woods,  on 
health  of  a  child,  203. 

Huxley,  Science  and  Educa- 
tion, 203. 


"Idylls  of  the  King,"  193. 
"Iliad,"  the,  60,  66,  198. 
Individual  instruction,  2,  3, 

6,  18,  34,  37,  38,  55,  107. 
Ingersoll,      Wild     Life      of 

Field  and  Orchard,  200. 
"In   School   Days,"    194. 
Irving,  Washington,   Sketch 

Book,  197. 


Jack  and  the  Bean  Stalk,  195. 
Jack  the  Giant-Killer,   195. 
Jules  Verne,  198. 
Jungle  Books,  199. 


Keeping  Up  with  Lizzie,  203. 
Kelly,  Myra,  Little  Citizens^ 
203. 


Kenelm  Chillingly,  83,  85. 
Key,  Ellen,   The  Century  of 

the  Child,  202. 
Kindergarten,  2,  20,  41,  42, 

131. 

"King  of  the  Golden  River," 

196. 
Kingsley,  Water  Babies,  196. 
Kipling,  Jungle  Books,  199. 


"Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel, 

The,"  195. 
"Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow, 

The,"  82,  197. 
Letter- writing,  13,  82. 
Lincoln,    Abraham,    master 

of  English,  46;  education, 

145. 

Linnaeus,  Carl,  Swedish  bot- 
anist, 171. 

Little  Busybodies,  200. 

Little  Citizens,  203. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wads- 
worth,  "Courtship  of 
Miles  Standish,"  79,  80, 
81,  192;  "Sands  of  the 
Desert  in  an  Hour-Glass," 
83;  "The  Arrow  and  the 
Shell,"  189;  "Hiawatha," 
67,  68,  69,  70,  71,  72,  73, 
75,  98,  187,  191,  198; 
children's  poet,  191;  "The 
Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,'^ 
191;  "The  Children's 
Hour,"  191;  *' Village 
Blacksmith,"  191;    "The 


2IO    EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


Rainy  Day,"  191;  "The 
Arrow  and  the  Song," 
191;  "The  Builders,"  181, 
191;  "The  Bridge,"  191; 
"Paul  Revere's  Ride," 
191;  "The  Day  is  Done," 
192;  "Evangeline,"  18, 
192. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  "Vi- 
sion of  Sir  Launfal,"  194; 
"A  Day  in  June,"  194; 
"First  Snowfall,"  194. 

Lytton,  Kenelm  Chillingly^ 
83,  85. 

M 

Macaulay,  "Horatius  at  the 

Bridge,"  193. 
Malnutrition,  175. 
"Man  Without  a  Country," 

195,  196. 

Maps,  explaining,  199. 

Mark  Twain,  Prince  and  the 
Pauper t  197;  Travels  at 
Home,  197;  Travels  in 
History  y   197. 

Martin,  G.  M.,  Emmy  Lou, 
203. 

Martin,  M.,  The  Friendly 
Stars,  201. 

Mathematics,  4,  5,  21,  105. 

McMurry,  Dr.,  investiga- 
tion, 30;  How  to  Study, 
203;  Standards  of  Ele- 
mentary Education,  203. 

Measuring,  116,  117,  121, 
122. 


Mental  environment,  4; 
arithmetic,  18,  19,  114, 
128;  training,  31,  114; 
development,  76,  160. 

Memorizing,  66,  71,  72,  76, 
79,  86. 

Memory,  subjects,  31;  neg- 
lected, 66;  lack  of,  175. 

"Milky  Way,"  148. 

Miller,  Joaquin,  "Colum- 
bus," 188,  193. 

Mind  in  the  Making,  171, 
202. 

Milton,  "Sonnet  on  His 
Blindness,"  194. 

Mind-maturing,  slow,  175. 

Monroe  and  Buckbee,  Our 
Country  and  Its  People, 
199;  Europe  and  Its 
People,  199. 

Montessori  system,  7,  131. 

Montessori  System  in  The- 
ory and  Practice,  The,  7, 
203. 

Mother  Goose  rhymes,  66, 
67. 

Mother,  natural  teacher,  i, 
2,  5,  38,  39,  40,  41,  46,  47, 
48,  170;  distrust  of  teach- 
ing ability,  3,  45. 

Motor-minded,  89. 

"Mountain  and  the  Squir- 
rel, The,"   193. 

Mt.  Lebanon,  public  schools, 
38. 

Multiplication,  104,  105, 
107,  109,  115,  116,  180. 

"My  Shadow,"  67. 


INDEX 


211 


N 

National  Geographic  Maga- 
zine ^  201. 

National  Playground  Asso- 
ciation, 36. 

Nature  study,  20,  21,  25, 
142,  145,  150,  i5i»  153, 
154,  156,  199,  200. 

Nature  Study  and  Life,  199. 

Neff,  Power  Through  Perfect 
Ideas f  203. 

Neighborhood  school,  55,  56, 

57- 

Newell,  Peter,  195,  196. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  171. 

Normal  Child  and  Primary 
Education f   The,  203. 

Note-book,  109,  185-190; 
for  written  work,  185-188; 
loose-leaf,  188,  189;  pic- 
tures in,  189,  190. 

Number  sense,  loi. 

**Nurnberg  Stove,"  196. 


Observation,  how  to  teach, 
139-158;  lack  of,  139. 
fundamental  problem  in 
education,  141,  146;  cul- 
tivates interest,  151;  pre- 
liminary training  in,  156; 

"Odyssey,"  60,  66,  198. 

"Old  Ironsides,"  194. 

Old  King  Cole,  67. 

Ouida,  **Nurnberg  Stove," 
196. 


Our  Country  and  Its  People^ 
199. 


*'Paul  Revere's  Ride,"  191. 
Pebbles,  counting  with,  103, 

104,   107,   108,   109,    no, 

119,  122,  187. 
Perry  Picture  Co.,  189. 
Pictures,  188,  189,  190. 
"Pied   Piper  of   Hamelin," 

193. 

Playgrounds,  36. 

Playrooms,  36. 

Poetry,  foundation  of  edu- 
cation, 5,  59-72,  188-196; 
modem,  59;  language  of 
childhood,  60-62;  mem- 
orizing, 64,  66,  71,  72,  76, 
79,  80,  86;    copying,  82. 

Pollen,  147. 

Power  through  Perfect  Ideas^ 
203. 

Prime  numbers,  118,  119. 

Prince  and  the  Pauper,  197. 

Principals  and  clerical  work, 

15. 
Public-school   system,    3-7, 

9-23,  24-38,  39,  40,  56. 
Punctuation,  82,  85. 

R 

"Rainy  Day,  The,"  191. 
Reading,  63,  74,  75,  76,  77, 

86,  87,  88. 
Religious  education,  57,  58. 


212   EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


Rhead,     Louis,    illustrator, 

198. 
Rhetoric,  77. 
Richter,  Jean  Paul,  39. 
"Rip  Van  Winkle,"  197. 
Robinson  Crusoe^  198. 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  39; 

Entile,  203. 
Ruskin,    quoted,    14,    204; 

"King     of     the     Golden 

River,"  196. 


St.  Nicholas,  202. 

"Sands  of  the  Desert  in  an 
Hour-Glass,"  83. 

School,  neighborhood,  6,  56, 
57;  curriculum,  7,  14,  16, 
18,  28,  33,  48,  49,  100, 
175;  unsanitary,  12; 
course  of  study,  12,  13, 
18,  26,  31;  overcrowded, 
12,  25,  26,  40,  151;  grad- 
ing system,  14,  17,  19; 
reconstruction,  11,  32,  33, 
38,  40;  supervision,  14, 
15,  30;  principals,  15,  30; 
tests,  16;  country,  16,  17, 
18,  19,  22,  25;  elementary, 
28,  30;  secondary,  29; 
primary,  32,  40;  religious 
education  in,  57,  58; 
standards,  174. 

School  in  the  Home,  The,  202. 

"School  of  the  Future,  The," 
202. 

Science  and  Education^  203. 


Scott,  Sir  Walter,  "Lay  of 
the  Last  Minstrel,"   195. 
Secrets  Out  of  Doors,  199. 
Self-control,  175. 
Sense  development,  141, 142, 

143,  149. 
Senses,  the,  140,  143. 
Sense-training,  131. 
"Shadow,  My,"  67. 
Shakespeare,  145;   Merchant 

of    Venice,     198;     Julius 

CcBsar,  198. 
"Shell,  The,"  189. 
Short    sessions    advocated, 

32-38. 
Sight  method,  87,  88. 
Sindbad  the  Sailor,  195. 
"Skeleton  in  Armor,  The," 

189. 
Sketch  Book,  197. 
Sleep,  need  of,  78. 
Small    groups,    advantages, 

33,  34,  35. 
Smith,    Dr.    Theodate    L., 

The  Montessori  System  in 

Theory  and  Practice,  203. 
Smith,    Professor,   Mind  in 

the  Making,  202,  203. 
Smith,  William  Hawley,  The 

Evolution    of  Dodd,    202; 

All  the  Children  of  All  the 

People,  202. 
"Snowbound,"  194. 
Solstice,  149. 
"Sonnet  on  His  Blindness," 

194. 
Special  gift,  encourage,  76. 
Speed,  108. 


INDEX 


213 


Spelling,  88-99,  i8o»  181, 
187;  learning  the  alpha- 
bet,  90,   91;    word  lists, 

91-98. 

Spencer,  39,  173;  Educa- 
tion^ 203. 

Spinal  curvature,  12. 

Square  measure,  1 24, 1 25, 1 26. 

Stamen,  147. 

Standards  of  Elementary 
Education,  30,  203. 

Stevenson,  60,  67;  Treasure 
I  stand ,  198. 

Stigma,  147. 

Stories,  77,  78,  188. 

Story  0}  Ah,  The,  199. 

Stowe,  Mrs.,  172. 

Subtraction,  105. 

Supervision,  14,  15,  30. 

Surface  measurement,  126. 

**  Sweet  and  Low,"  192. 

Swiss  Family  Robinson,  198. 

Symbols,  109. 


Tales  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 
61,  198. 

Tales  of  the  Greeks,  199. 

Tales  of  the  Romans,  199. 

Tarr  and  McMurry's  Geog- 
raphy, 199. 

Teacher,  trust  in,  2;  less 
efficient,  15,  20;  city,  22; 
women,  25;  men,  25; 
supervision,  30;  liberty  of 
action,  30,  33;  talkative, 
102. 


Tennyson,  Alfred,  "Bugle 
Song,"  189;  "The  Shell," 
189;  "Charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade,"  189,  192; 
"What  Does  Little  Birdie 
Say?"  192;  "Sweet  and 
Low,"  192;  "The Brook," 
192;  "Blow,  Bugle, 
Blow,"  192;  "Break, 
Break,  Break,"  192; 
"Crossing  the  Bar,"  192; 
"Idylls  of  the  King,"  193, 

Text-books,    198-201,  204. 

Thackeray,  Vanity  Fair,  84. 

Thinking,  independent,  115. 

Three  Bears,  195. 

Through  the  Looking- Glass, 
196. 

Tom  Brown  at  Rugby,  198. 

Tom  Thumb,  195. 

"Tortoise   and   the   Hare," 

177. 
Touch  sense,  140. 
Treasure  Island,  198. 
Tweedledum  and  Tweedle- 

dee,  67. 

U 

Ugly  Duckling,  195. 
Unsanitary     conditions     in 

schools,  12. 
Upland  and  Meadow,  200. 

V 

Vanity  Fair,  84. 
Ventilation,  34. 


214    EDUCATING  THE  CHILD  AT  HOME 


''Village  Blacksmith/'  191. 
''Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  194. 
Vocabulary,  82,  83,  93,  149, 
174. 

W 

Wagner,  Nibelungenleid,i97. 
Wake  Robin,  154. 
Wall-charts,  explaining,  199. 
Ways  of  Nature f  201. 
Ways  of  the  Six- Footed,  199. 
Wesley,  Susanna,  44. 
"What  Does  Little  Birdie 

Say?"  192. 
Whittier,    John    Greenleaf, 

"Snowbound,*'      194; 


"Barefoot     Boy,"      194; 

"In  School  Days,"  194. 
Wild  Life  of  Field  and  Or- 
chard, 200. 
Wonder  Book,  197. 
Work  habit,  7,  8,  113,  159- 

169. 
"Wreck    of     the   Hesperus, 

The,"  191. 
Writing,      129-135;      rules, 

185-188;    note-books  for, 

185-190. 


Youth's  Companion,  202. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFOENIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 

STAMPED  BELOW 

Books  not  returned  on  time  are  subject  to  a  fine  of 
50c  per  volume  after  the  third  day  overdue,  increasing 
to  $1.00  per  volume  after  the  sixth  day.  Books  not  in 
demand  may  be  renewed  if  application  is  made  before 
expiration  of  loan  period. 


0CT28tffl8 


DEC  24  1946 


LIBRARY  USE 

NAY  6  '654ii 

;,,-5\tof«K6    '65.2PM 


,^^s'b'^^^ 


.^QS4 


uvi 


.zoi'iov'54D^ 


41954  10 


50m-7,'16 


■pfjtA- 


VB  05342 


296680 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  lylBRARY 


